Green Options

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A recent article in Business Green discusses several ways of classifying the green consumer and the issues related to reaching them. Though demographics, the tried and true way of sorting out consumers into groups by income, age, education, etc. works well in some categories, it’s not as helpful in segmenting green consumers.

Enter Psychographics, often used by niche marketers, it can be an effective tool for eco entrepreneurs.

• Demographics looks at characteristics of people that include age, income, education, occupation, household size, home ownership and home value, among other factors.
• Psychographics delves deeper into people’s lifestyles and behaviors, including their interests and values.

While segments of green consumers vary according to the source you use (check out this hilarious post that outlines some of them) I’ll use the Natural Marketing Institute’s labels for LOHAS ( lifestyles of health and sustainability) consumers.

• LOHAS — very progressive on environment and society, looking for ways to do more; not too concerned about price (16%).
• Naturalites — primarily concerned about personal health and wellness, and use many natural products; would like to do more to protect the environment (25%).
• Conventionals — practical, like to see the results of what they do; interested in green products that make sense (e.g., save money) in the long run (23%).
• Drifters — not too concerned about environment, figuring we’ve got time to fix environmental problems; don’t necessarily buy a lot of green products, though may like to “be seen” in Whole Foods to enhance their image (23%).
• Unconcerned — have other priorities, not really sure what green products are available, and probably wouldn’t be interested anyway; they buy products strictly on price, value, quality, and convenience (23%).

Watching the news and reading the popular press you’d think that the interest in organic products is so high that simply making your idea for a new product a reality ensures success. Not so fast.

One of the biggest fallacies in popular folklore is:

“Make a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”

In reality, over 90% of businesses fail within the first five years, even the ones with really great ideas. Good execution beats originality any day. And good execution requires good solid market information.

With organic products so hot many a natural product manufacturer or organic food processor has found initial success came easy. As the field matures however, competitors enter the market and bigger retailers show interest in the product. Both require a fledgling company to be prepared with data and selling points.

As my friend, Sustainable Lifestyle Guru and Karmakonsum founder Christoph Harrach states, the Green Fashion movement is a web2.0 movement. He calls it “Eco2.0″. Weather it’s true or not globally, in Germany most cool green fashion labels available are sold online.

Some labels go even further and let their customers be part of their communities deciding over styles, models, and where the money spent for charity goes to. Fair Trade clothing sold over music labels, online design contests, innovative ideas are getting so normal that we don’t even react. But isn’t it great to not only decide for wearing great clothes with a conscious feel, but also being able to connect to your clothing labels within social communities? In the end social fashion is starting to mean more than organic cotton, it can meanwhile mean that you as a costumer decide how the new collection looks!

One of my German favorites here are Armed Angels, who have a radical community approach combined with high ecological and social standards of their production and Fairliebt (”Fairly in love”), who sell simple Fair Trade shirts with a strong feeling for a new community of young, conscious buyers with a dedication to great style.

Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability, LOHAS, for short, is an incremental part of the green marketing effort. The concept received a boost recently when marketing research giant Nielsen teamed up with the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) to create an in-depth study of LOHAS.

The two research houses put the LOHAS market size down at $209 billion. This number includes services as well as tangible products. LOHAS are determined by NMI and Nielsen as people who “have a meaningful sense of environmental and social responsibility and incorporates those values into their purchase decisions.”

Well, if you’re reading this, you probably are.

LOHAS stands for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. Representing an estimated 50 million American adults, the name LOHAS is now synonymous with the “Cultural Creatives” segment of the population originally identified in 1996 by sociologist, author, and market researcher Paul Ray, Ph.D. Ray, along with psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson, described the segment in their 2000 book, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People

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