Green Not Always an Easy Sell to Skeptical Consumers

- This is a portion of an article from the June 22 issue of Nation's Building News Online. See the full article here.

Although “green” is now very much in the nation’s vernacular, green builders should not assume that consumers are sold on sustainability, Suzanne Shelton, president and CEO of the Shelton Group, told the NAHB National Green Building Conference last month in Dallas.

Shelton said that prospective buyers of green homes are more concerned about what sustainable features will do to improve their lives than to save the planet, and at a time when the state of the economy is the leading concern, consumers are looking to save money on energy but also to avoid paying some of the higher prices they associate with green.

Education is key to motivating mainstream consumers to make sustainable choices, she said, and the trick is to provide information that doesn’t overwhelm them.

Armchair Environmentalists

Green builders need to know what they’re up against, and Shelton said that they can use data such as findings from her company’s surveys and focus groups to talk to customers about what they really care about.

For instance, one of her surveys found that 96% of the public doesn’t know that electricity is bad for the environment; two-thirds don’t know that electricity is generated by burning coal. A small majority correctly identifies coal-fired electrical generation as the leading cause of global warming; most think it’s traffic.

“Consumers know enough about green to get them through a cocktail party conversation,” Shelton said.

More than half of those surveyed agreed that it’s important to have a green house, but only about a third could name a green home feature.

“People say one thing and do another,” she said. “They are great armchair environmentalists, but not great at doing it themselves.”

While 49% of consumers say a company’s environmental policies are an important factor in making a decision to make a purchase, only 21% say they have actually bought a product this way and only 7% can name that product.

“There’s a fuzzy cloud around what’s green,” Shelton said, “and consumers are afraid of making the wrong decision. When they don’t know what to do, they do nothing.”

- This is a portion of an article from the June 22 issue of Nation's Building News Online. See the full article here.