Survey on eco-labelled products

Analysis of the responses collected

25-309

30-350

35-402

40-450

45-500

50-550

55-600

Plz indicate the age group you belong to

Kindly indicate your approximate monthly income

Up to 50,000873%

Greater than 1 lakh19%

Between 1 lakh to 2 lakh00%

Greater than 2 lakh218%

Que1) Choose the activities you would prefer to do over a weekend.

Conclusion- The highly preferred activity is staying at home over weekends followed by the watching tv/films on the weekend.Ques 2) Please rate your interest levels in each of these activities:

People are highly interested in going on weekend outings also in meeting friends and family.Que3) Where do you generally prefer shopping for grocery?

Conclusion- Maximum number of people prefer to go to supermarket for shopping grocery items.Que 4) Where do you prefer shopping for personal care items like cosmetics, deodorants,hair care etc?

Conclusion- Maximum number of people prefer to go to malls to purchase personal care items.Que5) Which items do you recycle?

Conclusion- Mostly old newspapers followed by old clothes, toys etc. are recycled.Que6) How do you prefer packaging for personal care products?

Conclusion- The preferred packaging depends on the personal care product purchased

Ques 6) Indicate the frequency with which you refer to product labels while purchasing the product

More than 90% of the respondants check the labelQues 7) What information do you look out on the label while purchasing personal care products

Que8) The personal care items like soaps, deodorants,toothpaste etc have an impact on the environment.

X-axis - ScaleY-axis- No. of responses.

Conclusion- Most of the people believe that the personal care items do impact the environment.Ques 9) As a consumer I can contribute in reducing the environmental impact caused by personal care products

Yes10 91%

No19%

Ques 10) Rate the factors influencing the choice of eco-labelled personal care products.

Considering the factors that have number of responses greater than 7(completely agree + agree) in their favour

1. It can be clearly ascertained that the proper information about the product surpasses all the other factors while influencing the customers buying decision.2. Also reliability on the past experience comes as the second most important factor.Customers are more likely to purchase eco label products if they have some past experience regarding their usage.3. Other factors such as availability, goodness for health are the important factors.

Interview with a Chemist

Interviewer:Jay Singh and Ashish Jindal (Students)Interviewee:Avinash (Owner of Sarthaki medical and general store, Hinjewadi)

Conversation:Jay: Name the personal care products available at your shop.Avinash: The personal care products available with me are shampoos, soap, hand wash, powder, toothpaste, deodorants, shaving cream, aftershave, razors, face wash, hair oil, baby diapers and sanitary pads.Jay: What are the brands available for each of these products?Avinash: the brands available for each of the above products are: Shampoopantene, head and shoulders, dabur, nile, ayur, vatika, clean n clear

DeodorantsFoggs, Charlie, Gatsby, Kamasutra

PowderYardley , ponds, axe, denim

Face washGarnier, lakme, Himalaya, clean n clear

Hand washDettol, life buoy, palmolive

Shaving creamPark avenue, axe, palmolive

Face creamVicco, fair and handsome, ponds

SoapDettol, life buoy, lux

Jay : How much inventory of these products do you keep and what is the frequency of reordering the products? Avinash: We do not keep much of inventory with us as the time of arrival of goods when we place an order with a distributor is very less, therefore we prefer to order products at a day to day basis. The inventory kept with us is 5-6 pieces per product. Jay: Are you aware of the eco-labelled products available in the market? Do you think there is any difference between the regular products and eco labelled ones?Avinash: No, eco labelled products have not gained much recognition and such products are not available extensively in the market.Jay: What do you offer to consumers who seek your advice on purchasing personal care products, products with good margin or brands whose stock you need to clear up?Avinash: Being a business man it is natural that we maximise the sale of products having a greater margins over the ones that give less returns. However at times when we are stuck with too much inventory of a particular product we try to sell and promote it.Jay: How frequently do consumers check the expiry date of products they purchase?Avinash: About 70% of the customers check the expiry date. Since this area is an IT hub, the people are well aware of the hazards of using expired products.Jay: Do consumers question you on the contents of the various personal care products they purchase?Avinash: No, in the personal care sector people are rarely bothered about the ingredients involved in the products. Jay: What do you do about the products that get expired?Avinash: We order personal care products on a day to day basis, so it is very rare that the products get expired. As people rarely check the expiry of shampoos, deodorants etc so we tend to sell them anyway.Jay: Do you encourage usage of plastic bags or do you prefer substitutes like giving a paper bag or asking the customer to get his own carry bag?Avinash: We tend to discourage the use of plastic bags by giving customers paper bags as we realize the impact of non-biodegradable materials on the environment. However, we still have to give plastic bags to 20-25% of the customers in order to prevent any effect on our sales.Jay: Would you prefer to stock up and promote eco- labelled products if you get incentives for the same?Avinash: Yes, the environment is our collective responsibility and making any difference for the better is recommended.

Thank you

Interview with a consumer

Interviewer:Medha and Aditi (Students)Interviewee:Vani Rangarajan, TCS

Conversation:Medha: How long have you been working at this place?Vani: Since 1.5 yearsMedha: Where do you stay?Vani: BanerMedha: How far is your house from the office?Vani: 30 minutesMedha: How do you commute? Vani: Office BusMedha: How you carry your own lunch to work?Vani: No. I dont carry lunch. Eat office mess foodMedha: If you order take away (parcel) what do you do with the containers in which the food is packed- Vani: Generally throw away the containersMedha: How frequently do you use disposable items? Like spoons, tissuesVani: Tissues are used on a regular basis. We dont use plastic spoons but steel onesMedha: How much time do you spend for yourself on a daily basis? What do you do in that time? Do you exercise? If yes which form of exerciseVani: I spend closed to 1.5 hours a day for myself. I read books, watch tv and meditate at times.Medha: What is it that you indulge in to maintain a healthy lifestyle?Vani: I eat vegetables and fruits. Have green tea every day. I buy organic foods sometimes if I go to a market where they are available. Medha: What is that you indulge in to maintain your appearance? Vani: I use hair shampoo and neem face wash by Himalaya brand. I prefer them as they are less in chemical and more herbal in nature. I dont used a particular cream but a normal sunscreen and moisturizer. My husband is 28 years and uses Garnier products. We buy products generally looking at the use and the brand.

Literature Review

Introduction

In this modern era of societal marketing business ethics and social responsibility are becoming the guiding themes for marketing strategies and practices. Within the field of Ethics and social responsibility environmental and green marketing topics are the central topics, which are closely related to biodiversity and sustainability. Consumers now have worries about the future of the world and as results of this mostly prefer environment friendly products. In return to these attitudes of the consumers, companies have started to form their marketing strategies so as to appeal increasing awareness of this Environment-friendliness. These marketing strategies, named as green marketing, have caused companies to adopt green policies in their pricing, promotion, product features and distribution activities. The green consumer is generally defined as one who adopts environmentally friendly behaviours and/or who purchases green products over the standard alternatives. Green consumers are more internally-controlled as they believe that an individual consumer can be effective in environmental protection. Thus, they feel that the job of environmental protection should not be left to the government, business, Environmentalists and scientists only; they as consumers can also play a part. Our project does a comprehensive research and analysis to understand the awareness towards eco-labelled personal care products and to study the attitude of women towards the environment.

ReviewThe demand for green products has been shown to be uneven across different market segments (Ottman, 1992; Peattie, 1992). Thus, for organizations to position green products, or communicate their environmental efforts, to members of the population who are likely to be concerned about environmental issues, green consumer segments need to be identified (Bohlen et al., 1993, p. 415). Over the last 20 years, there have been relatively few attempts to classify consumers specifically according to levels of green purchasing behaviour. However, there has been a whole wealth of research, using a variety of segmentation variables, attempting to profile the environmentally conscious members of the population in general. The measures that have been used fall into two distinct categories: socio-demographics, such as sex, age, education and social class (see Schlegelmilch et al., 1994), and personality measures, such as locus of control, alienation, conservatism and dogmatism (e.g. Balderjahn 1988; Crosby et al., 1981; Henion and Wilson, 1976; Kinnear et al., 1974). Given the relative ease with which socio-demographics can be measured and applied, it is not surprising these have been the most widely used variables for profiling purposes. However, recent evidence illustrates that there is very little value in the use of socio-demographic characteristics for profiling environmentally-conscious consumers in the UK (Schlegelmilch et al. 1994, p. 348), with only very weak relationships uncovered on a bivariate basis.Indeed, focusing specifically on pro-environmental purchasing behaviour, Schlegelmilch et al. (1994) explained, less than 10 per cent of variation through multiple regression procedures; this is in line with US studies that have performed multivariate analyses to link such characteristics to measures of green behaviour (Van Liere and Dunlap, 1980). The limited utility of socio-demographics may be explained by the fact that the environment is no longer a marginal issue; indeed, environmental concern is becoming the socially accepted norm (Schwepker and Cornwell, 1991, p. 85). Thus, it perhaps should not be expected that high levels of green purchasing behaviour would only be reflected in certain socio-demographic sectors of the consumer base.Personality variables have been found to have somewhat higher linkages to individuals environmental consciousness (Kinnear et al., 1974; Schwepker and Cornwell, 1991). However, while this is true for general environmental measures, the results are somewhat inconsistent for specific pro-environmental behaviours, such as green purchasing decisions (see Balderjahn, 1988).Furthermore, personality variables have been shown to explain only a small Green purchasing decisions are a part of the total variability of the behavioural measures used (Webster, 1975, p. 196). Indeed, Hooley and Saunders (1993; p. 145) suggest that caution should be taken in using personality variables for market segmentation according to behavioural criteria: In most instances, personality measures are most likely to be of use for describing segments once they have been defined on some other basis. It is quite possible, indeed probable, that behaviour and reasons behind it will vary within segments defined on the basis of personality characteristics alone. Moreover, personality variables do not easily lead to segmentation strategy (Webster, 1975, p. 196) due to the inherently complex processes involved in their measurement and interpretation.Given the failures of the above two classes of variables, this article proposes a new segmentation approach, through an analysis of the linkages between pro-environmental purchase behaviour and measures of environmental consciousness. The rationale for this approach rests on the fact that consumers have traditionally been shown to express their environmental consciousness through the products they purchase. In the first wave of post-war enthusiasm for environmental protection during the late 1960s and early 1970s, being environmentally-concerned and being consumerist were seen as mutually exclusive. During this period, it was thought that the only way to cut down on pollution and solve the worlds environmental problems, particularly natural resource depletion, was to cut down on consumption. Throughout the 1970s and1980s, energy efficiency and pollution control measures appeared to promise a have your cake and eat it environmentalism (Henley Centre, 1990, p. 24) and, as a consequence, green issues were not at the forefront of consumer concerns.However, in recent years when the environment surged in importance, rather than cut down their consumption of products, consumers began to seek out environmentally-friendly alternatives in preference to their usual product purchases. Hence the green consumer was born. Evidence for this change in purchase behaviour can be found in numerous surveys. For example, in July1989, a MORI (Market and Opinion Research International) poll revealed that the proportion of consumers selecting products on the basis of environmental performance had increased from 19 per cent to 42 per cent in less than a year (Elkington, 1989) and, by late 1992, a Nielsen study revealed that four out of five consumers were expressing their opinions about the environment through their purchasing behaviour (Marketing, 1992). It is likely, therefore, that consumers who exhibit high levels of environmental consciousness make more green purchasing decisions than those exhibiting low levels. Thus, it is envisaged that measures of environmental consciousness will be more closely related to purchasing habits than either socio-demographics or personality variables.The environmental consciousness constructed over the last 25 years, there have been numerous attempts to conceptualize and operationalize the construct of environmental consciousness. In addition to the marketing literature (Anderson et al., 1974; Antil, 1984; Van Dam, 1991), studies have been conducted in a wide range of other disciplines, such as European psychology (e.g. Arbuthnot and Lingg, 1975; Lounsbury and Tornatsky, 1977;Maloney et al., 1975), sociology (Buttel and Flinn, 1978; Mohai and Twight,1987; Ray, 1975), political science (e.g. Jackson, 1983), environmental studies(e.g. Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978; Scott and Willits, 1994; Vining and Ebreo,1990) and business research (Balderjahn, 1988). A number of different instruments have been used in the above efforts to measure environmental consciousness. On the substantive front, these vary in the extent to which they incorporate different green issues, such as population control, natural resources and energy consumption. For example, some studies have focused on concern about acid rain (Arcury et al., 1987), recycling issues(Vining and Ebreo, 1990) or pollution (Ramsay and Rickson, 1976), while more common practices have been to either aggregate items dealing with these various substantive issues into single environmental measures (e.g. Hackett,1993; Jackson, 1985; Maloney et al., 1975), or to develop a number of measures, each covering specific issues (Tognacci et al., 1972; Witherspoon and Martin,1992). The latter two approaches would seem to provide a more comprehensive profile of green consumers, however, such approaches have been criticized on the basis that: it is unclear whetherthese various substantive issues reflect equally the broader concept of concern with environmental quality (Van Liere and Dunlap, 1981: p. 653).Measurement instruments also differ in terms of their implicit or explicit assumptions regarding the components of the environmental consciousness construct. For example, some have solely addressed environmental attitudes (Buttel, 1979), capturing individuals levels of concern/interest about specific or general aspects of environmental, ecological, or energy-saving phenomena. Other studies have focused on environmentally-sensitive behaviour (Brooker,1976), capturing individuals past, current and intentional commitment to activities that aim to ameliorate societys negative impact on the natural environment. However, given the controversy of the attitude-behaviour link (see Foxall, 1984a,b), an analysis of attitudinal components alone may not accurately predict actual behaviour. Indeed, weak linkages between attitudes and behaviour have been noted in the environmental and social marketing literature (Gill et al., 1986; Rothschild, 1979); moreover, in order to be green, it may be argued that individuals require an understanding of the consequences of their behaviours (Bohlen et al., 1993, p. 417). In this context, positive attitudes towards the environment are not necessarily indicative of high levels of environmental knowledge (see Ramsay and Rickson, 1976). Thus, along with attitudinal and behavioural components, knowledge items that capture individuals level of factual information about specific or general aspects of environmental, ecological or energy-saving phenomena should be contained within any operationalization of environmental consciousness. However, to date, measures of environmentalism have included relatively few components of the entire green semantic domain (Hackett, 1992, p.

Green purchasing decisionsIn addition to the existing substantive issues and theoretical Conceptualizations, many existing measurement instruments have not been subjected to rigorous psychometric assessments of dimensionality, reliability and validity. For example, some studies have merely used internal consistency measures to assess both the reliability and dimensionality of the employed items (Buttel, 1979; Jackson, 1985; Tognacci et al., 1972); however, if items are combined that in reality measure two correlated yet distinct constructs, a combination ofall their items might well yield internal consistency, even though they reflect two different constructs (Spector, 1992, p. 54). Worse still, some studies have aggregated items into composite measures without any reliability or validity checks (Corrado and Ross, 1990; Lowe et al., 1980; Murphy et al., 1979; Ramsay and Rickson, 1976).Finally, the vast majority of relevant literature is American (65 US studies have been uncovered) and European academic research in this area has been relatively sparse (Schlegelmilch et al., 1994, p. 348). In this context, there may be certain country-specific factors, such as levels and types of pollution, environmental legislation and the availability of green products that will affect the operationalization of the environmental-consciousness construct.Given the obvious problems inherent in previous measurement instruments, to capture levels of environmental consciousness existent in the UK consumer base, it was decided to develop a new series of summated rating scales, capturing the entire environmental consciousness domain as it applies to the UK consumer, namely measures of environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour.