Survey Results – Part 1: Additional research results regarding price and availability of eco-friendly action sports products

Additional findings from Sustainability in Action Sports Blog research...

SECTION 4 – PRICE AND AVAILABILITY OF GOODS IN MORE DETAIL

Additional research results also showed that consumer access is key. Price and availability are the two main factors as we have witnessed in the previous post.

Bivariate correlations with perceived negative effects of higher prices showed that:

• older people (+.210**)
• with more income (+.167**)
• and accentuated levels of ethical obligation (+.220**),
• often in the Hiking/Climbing and the Skiing segments

are not as much negatively affected in their buying intention when expecting price premiums. Therefore, their more positive levels of perceived behavioral control in terms of price have a supportive effect on their purchase behavior of green clothing products.
This consumer type resembles a target group description that has often been calledLOHAS (Life of Health and Sustainability). LOHAS are defined by Nielsen as consumers who are lifestyle-oriented, active stewards of the environmentthat incorporates those environmental and social values into their purchase decisions (cp. Nielsen 2009 about Canadian shoppers). But while the connection between environmental attitude, green identity and ethical obligation and eco-friendly purchasing decisions is strong, the decision still largely depends on the funds the individual consumer has at her disposal. Here, the older, the more educated means more income – more income means private budget isn’t as tight (that’s also why there is so many skiers – the correlation between skiing and age is positive, while it’s exactly the other way round for all boardsports. I must admit though – the survey has primarily been targeted at the boardsports scene and left younger freeskiers aside a little bit, which is truly a shame…). After all, this is one of the major discrepancies when trying to market green outerwear to the snowboard & freeski kids – for them it’s all about style and price, while green comes last for most of them, understandably. This is why companies from the action sports industry need to find ways to offer sustainable products without hefty price premiums. This blog and future post are trying to give some insights on potential solutions!

Bivariate correlations with expected levels of availability of eco-friendly outerwear in the stores showed that respondents with:

• accentuated levels of environmental identity (-.139*)
• positive green consumption attitudes (-.267**)
• a stronger feeling of ethical obligation to buy environmentally friendly (-.142*)
• and under the influence of significant others from the close social environment (-.133*)

were likely to show more positive purchase intentions, despite that fact that they expected availability to be lower. An explanation: the negative correlation means that the more positive the respondent’s attitude towards buying eco-friendly, the more he saw the lack of green products in the stores as a big obstacle. This lack of presence in the shop on the other hand did not influence the buying intention negatively. This means their behavioral intention to purchase green clothing was higher, although they knew about potential obstacles in the buying process (no nearby shops with a sustainable product range from multiple brands, etc.). This is good news! The finding shows that this (more extreme type of) green consumer is willing to overcome these obstacles actively. But as this results inhigher search costs (time and money invested to find or identify green products), it limits the size of the potential target group. Thus, improving the distribution strategy is important. It’s key to develop synergies between industry players on all levels of the supply chain to create a stronger and larger distribution network.

These two findings add more depth to the results from the previous blog and are also an important outcome for the upcoming marketing research analysis in the following blog posts about this topic. Stay tuned for more updates this coming week!

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** correlation is significant at the .01 sign. level (2-tailed).
* correlation is significant at the .05 sign. level (2-tailed).

Survey Results – Part 1: Obstacles that prohibit green consumer behavior in the context of eco-friendly sports outerwear

SECTION 3 – CONTROL BELIEFS AND THE PERCEIVED LIKELIHOOD OF OCCURRENCE

Perceived behavioral control (PBC) about purchasing eco-friendly clothing stands for the problem of implementation, the missing ability to perform environmentally or socially friendly acts. The level of PBC depends on the positive perception of facilitating factors or the negative perception of obstacles and their likelihood of occurrence, no matter if the control beliefs are rational/true or not (Ajzen 1988)[1]. Perceived control over the behavior accounts for behavioral decisions that are not under complete volitional control. This means that in the context of sustainable, functional outerwear or any other type of consumer behavior regarding eco-friendly products there are several external factors, which prohibit green consumer behavior. Six key factors were used in my paper to account for the obstacles in this context. The set of questions covers some, not all, of the key marketing issues in the areas of product development, pricing, distribution and communication. They contribute to the intention-behavior gap. This gap exists because consumers with very pronounced environmental attitudes might display a strong intention to purchase eco-friendly products (see Section 1), but get obstructed by several obstacles when trying to put their intention into action.

Therefore, the following two sets of questions were asked (as in the previous blog about the effects of social influences on the development of positive or negative purchasing intentions, the results were multiplied):

Which of the following problems affect the amount of environmentally friendly outerwear that you purchase?

• higher price of eco-products
• availability (not enough shops)
• limited range (choice, cuts or colors)
• lower quality of eco-product
• confusing variety of eco-labels
• obtaining information regarding what products are environmentally friendly

‘always a problem’ (-3) to ‘never a problem’ (+3) // note: items are reverse coded

The second step was the consumer’s perceived control or ability to act:
Please indicate below whether or not you believe that these problems are likely to occur when shopping for environmentally friendly outerwear…
Very unlikely (+1) to very likely (+7)

Obstacles in the purchasing process of sustainable clothing and the perceived likelihood of their occurrence (average per item across the entire sample)

Discussion of the results
It must be noted that the above results depend on the respondents’ level of experience and information. The results display the consumers’ assumptions or perceptions, whether they have never been in the situation or whether they have frequently purchased or tried to purchase eco-friendly textile products in the past (On a sidenote: There was no significant difference between respondents that did not put an emphasis on buying green in the past versus the group that cared about their consumption choices to a great or an extremely great extent before they answered this survey).

One of the most prominent and frequently discussed issues with green products is the price premium consumers are confronted with in the stores (-9,7). Not surprisingly, this obstacle proves to be the single biggest factor hindering the growth of green consumerism. But while innovative green products are not necessarily perceived as being “lower quality” (-3,2), two other important groups of obstacles can be identified. These two are under the control of companies communication and distribution departments. The lack of stores offering eco-friendly outerwear and the limited range seem to be a rather big negative influence on the purchasing intention. Apart from the availability problem, the problem of information plays another important role as well. Information about which products are “green” (-5,5) are missing and this lack of transparency can also not be reduced by a simple, understandable and trustworthy eco-label (-5,0).

Practical implications for marketeers
Pretty much all of these negative external influences are under the volitional control of the companies in the outdoor sports industry. There is a lot of room for improvement. Markets function by the law of supply and demand. Demand on the consumer side remains rather low because people are lacking information about and access to sustainable products. The magic word is: ENABLE!

Improving ACCESS to sustainable products

• High prices/limited range: Offer more sustainable products at lower price points with varying design and function, e.g. with certified material that ensures social and ecological quality this is already possible, while remaining profitable. Of course, the product portfolio should still contain “super-sustainable” products e.g. from certified and recycled material, fully recyclable, at somewhat premium prices.
• Availability: Develop specific distribution solutions specifically, but not exclusively for sustainable products. Work with specialised stores (e.g. Boarders Munich), including online platforms (e.g. 7Sky green room) and push non-specialised stores and chains to increase the percentage of sustainable outerwear. This can be done by giving these retailers an incentive by specific marketing activities, sales training and POS material that enables them to better market these products.

INFORM and ENABLE consumer to act

• Confusing variety of labels: Textile industry should discontinue the development of in-house labels or specific labels for certain product ranges. Those activities dilute the value of the “true” sustainability labels and confuse consumers – especially if they are not more sustainable in total. This also lowers the chance of being accused of “greenwashing”. Nevertheless, for sustainability standards that clearly exceed the common standard, there are two solutions to keep the comparative competitive advantage:

1. Either first movers still keep developing their own campaigns. Obviously, these industry leaders should continue to improve their core competency and to communicate their innovative first-mover position.
2. Or a second solution, which further reduces confusion on the consumer side, would be the development of an easy differentiation system (cp. green, orange, red “traffic light”-style labelling discussion from the food industry) by third-party certifiers, the providers of a respective label. This solution would reduce confusion and clearly help consumers distinguish how sustainable a product is (of course, with certain limits, which cannot be discussed here).

• Lack of information: Invest in cross industry joint marketing campaigns that raise the level of information and know-how on the consumer side. United efforts will certainly be more successful than the single-handed revolution attempt. Some first projects have been popping up over the past years (e.g.Quiksilver’s No Water Sucks) and the positive effects from the work of associations should also be noted (Note to self: should be posting more about these types of campaigns and actions in the future).

From my point of view, the combination consulting third-party certification companies and the respective sustainability labeling, possibly “traffic light style”, has one of the biggest potentials to overcome many of the above issues in the outdoor sports industry. I will talk more about two of the main obstacles, pricing and availability, in my next blog post launching tomorrow.

Stay with us and keep commenting! Enjoy your weekend! AJ

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Offline-References:

[1] Ajzen, Icek (1988), Attitudes, Personality and Behaviour (Mapping Social Psychology): Open University Press.

Survey Results – Part 1: Social influence of significant others regarding green consumer decision making

Survey Results – Part 1: Social influence of significant others regarding green consumer decision making below! This is very interesting and enlightening so please read! Section 3 coming tomorrow.

SECTION 2: THE EFFECTS OF COMPLYING TO SUBJECTIVE NORMS

In my research I used a modified version of the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand green consumer behavior in the outdoor sports industry better. The basic idea behind this psychological model is the following. Alongside previous authors, I argue that five different key factors influence an individual’s purchasing intention when making sustainable consumer decisions:

1. Their positive or negative attitudes towards the effects of the specific buying decision, which consist of a function of (product-related) beliefs and expectations about the likelihood of their occurence (discussed in the previous blog);
2. The positive or negative influence that significant others in the individuals social surroundings exert on the buying decision (the so-called “Subjective Norms” factor);
3. The perceived lack of control about the behavior or obstacles that hinder the buying process (e.g. a lack of availability of sustainable clothing in local stores);
4. A feeling of ethical obligation;
5. The effects of green consumer self-identity or in this context, the influence a certain context-related measure of self-identity, called environmental identity has.

While “environmental identity” (measuring someone’s relatedness to nature) was the main variable I discussed in my thesis, subjective norms had also been part of the model but received less attention. Therefore, this blog entry is giving some further inside about the results regarding the influence of the social world everybody is embed in.

Descriptive results: Subjective Norms

This factor consisted of 8 variables. All eight were multiplied by their likelihood of occurrence. What does this mean? First, respondents were asked about the subjective norms of other people (close to them) or institutions. Secondly, they had to rate “How big the respective group’s influence on your decision is and how well they would listen to it.” The two variables were then multiplied e.g. your family is rather green, +3, and you are very likely to listen to them, +7, your maximum score with the highest potential influence on your purchasing decision in this context would be 21.

How likely is it that the following groups think you should purchase environmentally friendly outerwear?

‘very unlikely’ (-3) to ‘very likely’ (+3)

• Close friends
• Family members
• Your partner (e.g. spouse or boy-/girlfriend)
• Green outerwear producers
• Environmental organizations (e.g. environmental groups, etc.)
• Retailers who stock environmentally friendly products
• Co-workers
• Peer-group in your sport

Please indicate, how much, in general, you want to do what the following groups think you should do…

Not at all (+1) to very much (+7)

The social influence of significant others regarding the purchase of green outerwear

Discussion of the results

As can be observed above, although the absolute range for individual respondents goes from -21 to +21, the average ranges between -1.2 for “co-workers” and +6.9 for “environmental organisations”. The results are clearly split in two distinct groups:

1. Green institutions or organisations (an obvious example: It’s very likely (+3) that Patagonia wants you to make sustainable consumption choices, but the average consumer is “not really” (+2) willing to comply)
2. Significant others in your social environment (another example: your “partner” cares about environmentally friendly consumptions choices (+1) and the average consumer is more likely to listen to what their beloved one says (+4) than any 3rd party)

Interestingly, the above results show that, for the average consumer, the effect of green institutions or organisations on consumer purchase intentions might be relatively high. But it suffers from the fact that most people are more likely to comply with subjective norms of significant others, they live in close relationship with.

Ok, this was obvious, so we need to find out who consumers in the outdoor sports market actually listen to! Thus, we need to dig a little bit deeper into the data. Sohere comes what’s really interesting. I split the 243 valid responses into two extreme groups differentiating by the overall participating  frequency in several outdoor sports:

• Group 1 – very low or no participation in outdoor sports (49 cases)
• Group 2 – extremely high participation frequency in multiple outdoor sports (57 cases)

There was a significant difference between the two groups in terms of social influence by significant others. Group 2, the individuals with very high outdoor sports affiliation were a lot more likely to listen to the “peer group in their sport” (4.00 compared to 5.16, sign. level .000) and to “green outerwear producers” (3.57 compared to 4.33, sign. level .037). There was no significant difference in terms of any other group of significant others (at the 0.05 significance level).

Practical implication for marketeers

What does this imply? This finding, amongst others in this marketing research project, shows that outdoor sports enthusiasts are a rather special target group when marketing functional outerwear or clothing. Participants of specific action or outdoor sports like snowboarding or climbing identify to a higher degree with the peer group in their sports. Moreover, the high level of identification between customer and brand (here, being the producers of green outerwear) within this market is an indicator that outdoor or boardsports companies’ trustworthy green messages are more likely to be heard than in other areas.

Two important conclusions arise from these results. Firstly, it becomes a little clearer why outdoor sports companies are leaders in the textile industry when it comes to sustainability. This might not only be due to the fact that the industry is relatively small and therefore more flexible. Individuals working in the industry are usually characterized by a strong connectedness to nature. This potentially affects decision-makers in top management positions as well as consumers. Which leads us to the second conclusion, to affect the decision-making process of consumers, tightly knit into their peer group, working with opinion leaders of each market segment to sway preferences more successfully is likely to be a successful measure.

In terms of simply sponsoring athletes this concept is as old as the first skaters that started to be covered with advertising in the late 70s. In regard to spreading the green message and raising interest in the positive effects of sustainable consumer behavior, this idea is also starting to thrive in the action sports industry. Icons and highly decorated athletes, like American Jeremy Jones in backcountry freeriding (Jones Snowboards), vegetarian Nicolas Müller in freestyle snowboarding or legendary Norwegian Terje Haakonsen, an advocate of organic food, who owns his own food store in Oslo and cares about the carbon footprint of his Arctic Challengesnowboarding event, have the potential to reach out to many, many of their fans. Examples from other sports, especially in climbing, exist just as often. Thus, building a sustainable marketing strategy around trustworthy and respected “changemakers” that lead the way could considered one interesting way to change consumer behavior step by step. Apart from companies with a sustainable corporate strategy, the athletes themselves should also realize their own potential to make a significant difference. Last but not least, producers of green functional outerwear or sustainable clothing from the outdoor sports industry should expand their first mover advantage – the engagement into sustainability will be especially valued by the nature-related outdoor sports target group.

More insights about the effects of a high outdoor sports participation frequency on environmental identity will follow in Part 2, which is coming soon. Stay tuned…

You agree, disagree? Wanna know more? Drop a comment!

Sustainability in Action Sports' Survey Results – Part 1: Environmental attitudes towards purchasing green functional outerwear

Sustainability in Action Sports' Survey Results – Part 1: Environmental attitudes towards purchasing green functional outerwear below! This is very interesting and enlightening so please read! Part 2 coming tomorrow.

SECTION 1: ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDES

Let’s start with one of the most significant influences on behavioral intention in the context of sustainable consumerism: the consumer’s attitude towards the behavior. Ajzen and Fishbein (1980)[1] define attitudes towards a behavior as a “person’s judgment that performing the behavior is good or bad, that he is in favor of or against performing the behavior” (p. 6). According to their theory “attitudes are a function of beliefs” (p. 7). In a sustainable consumer behavior context, a high degree of environmental attitudes would govern an individual’s evaluation of their purchasing behavior and thus his or her behavioral intentions.
Descriptive results: Attitudes towards purchasing environmentally friendly outerwear

So-called “behavioral beliefs” had to be rated by the participants from -3 to +3. Positive numbers stand for a positive attitudinal beliefs towards performing the behavior, vice versa. The following nine beliefs have been chosen to account for the array of beliefs that is likely to have an effect on green consumer behavior in this context:

I believe…

• avoiding the exploitation of scarce natural resources is…
• conscious consumption as a statement of personal opinion is…
• making non-sustainable companies change their mind is…
• encouraging retailers to stock more environmentally friendly products is…
• my peace of mind (for saving the environment) is…
• supporting producers of environmentally friendly products is…
• an eco-friendly product needs to have the same quality as the conventional product…
• eco-friendly outerwear has to be offered at the same price as conventional outerwear…
• purchasing a product, which is readily available is…

‘extremely unimportant’ (-3) to ‘extremely important’ (+3)

Discussion of the results

Consumer attitudes in my research can be split into product related attitudes andgeneral attitudes towards purchasing environmentally friendly or socially sound clothing – or functional outerwear. The key issue with green functional outerwear is delivering the product in comparable quality to the classical product (see above graphic: with a rating of 2.1 out of 3 on average). The other product related attitudes like the availability of the product and the price premium that usually has to be paid for outerwear with functional garments from recycled or certified ressources can be found at the bottom of the list. Many respondents deemed it least important for the price of eco-friendly products to be similar compared to “normal” products (see above graphic: lowest score of 1.2). But the relatively high standard deviation of 1.5 tells us that opinions differed significantly between certain types of consumers – ranging between “indifference” (-0,3) and “extremely important” (+2.7). When asked whether they believed that these green products are actually available at the same price in the shops, the majority of respondents though this was “rather likely” (not part of the above graphic). Combined, the low relative importance of price and the positive expectation of finding affordable, sustainable products on the shelves are a very positive influence on purchase intentions – at least theoretically. BUT, those are just attitudinal beliefs and subjective expectations, which are no indication of acceptance of a premium when it comes down to real behavior in the shops. This discrepancy is one of the main causes of the attitude-behavior gap, which will be further investigated later on.

The remaining 6 attitudes towards purchasing green gear are all rather positive. It needs to be noted that all these attitudes are a strong indication for the existence of strategic consumer behavior. Conscious consumers with a relatively well developed know-how about the textile value chain take the positive side-effects of green consumerism into account. Apart from the necessity to reduce or avoid the exploitation of scarce natural resources, the strong environmental attitudes about the potential of collective action to indirectly affect the future decision-making of an entire industry (higher turnover for green producers and retailers vs. lower sales for non-sustainable companies) should not be underestimated.

Practical implication for marketeers

Communication strategies with a strong focus on sustainability should try to explain this mechanism to consumers more clearly. Apart from making the complex product life cycle more transparent and focusing messaging on the classical competitive superiority of a product line (price, quality, design, brand), an innovative marketing strategy could additionally focus on the positive effects of strategic consumer behavior for your company or your green product line. Marketing should first of all emphasize on functionality and appearance “with environmental superiority ‘only’ complementing this value added” (Meyer 2001, p. 328)[2]. Also, the problem of consumers dramatically lacking information about the inevitability of paying the “real” price for the resources that all products consist of and/or the energy used up during their production process, needs to be tackeld.

Moreover, the collective buying decisions (support) or non-buying decisions (boycott) of consumers can have unexpectedly strong effects on changing the game and moving towards a sustainable future. Such a movement will make it increasingly easy for environmentally and socially friendly brands to succeed (e.g. US company Patagonia or Swiss-based Zimtstern, whose product are 100% bluesign certified). The purchase of certified or recycled clothes and outerwear, supports not just the producers and suppliers, but also helps the growth of sustainable production processes in general (cp. Hustvedt and Dickson 2009, p. 63)[3], which has positive long-term effects on the natural and social environment. This marketing approach could be especially fruitful in certain subcultures connected by a lifestyle closely related to nature, like the outdoor sports industry. This has rarely been the focus of marketing and advertising campaigns. Joint Marketing Initiatives sparked by the industry’s leaders (including producers, retailers, brands, athletes and other players like certification companies) might help to further raise the percentage of sustainable consumers by explaining customers why their money is well spent on sustainable products and how their individual support helps.

Segment 2 of Part 1 will follow shortly:

It will cover the consumer’s motivation to comply with subjective social norms of significant other in their social surroundings…

Let me know if you are missing anything crucial, in case you disagree, like what you are seeing, too much content, not enough, any questions etc. => Comments below very much appreciated!

References:

[1] The modified Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Ajzen, Icek and Martin Fishbein (1980), Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior: Prentice Hall.

[2] Meyer, Arnt (2001), “What’s in it for the customers? Successfully marketing green clothes,” Business Strategy and the Environment, 10 (5), 317-30.

[3] Hustvedt, Gwendolyn and Marsha A Dickson (2009), “Consumer likelihood of purchasing organic cotton apparel: Influence of attitudes and self-identity,” Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 13 (1), 49-65.

Marketing research about green consumerism in the outdoor sports industry – additional survey results are in!

Really great market research from Sustainability in Action Sports blog out of Germany. Below is the intro. I'll post Sections 1-3 of Part 1 shortly!

My Diploma thesis in Marketing at the TUM School of Management about “Assessing the influence of environmental identity on consumer purchase intention for green products” was handed in last year (it was graded 1.3, which is an A in Germany). Its main purpose was to derive implications for sustainable product development in the outdoor apparel market. The scope of the conductedinternational online survey surpassed the amount of specific results needed for statistical analysis in my paper. Therefore, the additional outcome of marketing research will be published here in several steps:

Part 1: Descriptive results of the study including consumer attitudes, the influence of social norms and perceived obstacles in the buying process in regard to green clothing.

Part 2: Does the outdoor sports participation frequency affect our level of connectedness to nature? And in return, does a strong environmental identity directly or indirectly influence consumer purchase intentions?

Part 3: Which psychological variables influence consumers’ buying intentions for green outerwear the strongest?

Follow us on Twitter (on the left) to get notified about the next update or read more about the research project…

To achieve this goal it was paramount to develop consumer profiles that help to understand the perception of environmentally friendly product attributes and the influences on green consumer decision-making better. Demographic profiles have frequently failed to predict environmentally conscious consumer behavior[1] and to describe target groups[2] properly. Gender, age, education and income are not suited to shed light on green consumerism. And motivations that affect the decision-making process are very complex and often result in a large gap between a consumer’s intention to purchase sustainable products and her actual behavior.

A well-known research framework[3] based on environmental psychology had the potential to overcome these issues by establishing a psychographic profile of environmentally concerned consumers, which will provide insight into their attitudes, identity and motivations. This approach helps to derive practical implications for product development and marketing activities for companies with a sustainable corporate strategy.

The 1st part is being published soon.

Follow us on Twitter (on the left) or subscribe to our RSS Feed to stay up to date!

http://twitter.com/greenactnsports

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References:

[1] Straughan, Robert D and James A Roberts (1999), “Environmental segmentation alternatives: a look at green consumer behavior in the new millennium,” Journal of Consumer Marketing, 16 (6), 558-75.

[2] Diamantopoulos, Adamantios, Bodo B Schlegelmilch, Rudolf R Sinkovics, and Greg M Bohlen (2003), “Can socio-demographics still play a role in profiling green consumers? A review of the evidence and an empirical investigation,” Journal of Business Research, 56 (6), 465-80.

[3] The modified Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Ajzen, Icek and Martin Fishbein (1980), Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior: Prentice Hall.

Sustainability in Action Sports Online Survey

One of our favorite blogs, Sustainability in Action Sports, is conducting on online survey accessing the influences on purchase intentions for environmentally friendly outdoor sports products.

Link to survey: http://www.facebook.com/l/2eea7;www.unipark.de/uc/eco-friendly-outdoor-products/

Thank you in advance for participating in the study! It will take less than 20 minutes of your time, your input will help to make a difference, and there is some nice next season gear up for grabs as well! The results of this study will reach the heads of sustainability, marketing managers and product developers in a lot of big, internationally operating outdoor sports companies.

Sustainability in Action Sports