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Green is the new consumer mantra

By Michel Brekelmans and David Xu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-28 17:17

Over the last few years China has implemented a number of ambitious climate-friendly policies. Many of the these policies were part of China's National Climate Change Program, released in June 2007.

The country's recent economic stimulus includes the largest green package in the world. And the government has created attractive opportunities for businesses providing industrial products that reduce environmental pollution or generate safe energy such as flue gas desulfurization, variable frequency drives and biomass power.

To the average Chinese consumer they undoubtedly remain complex names for confusing technologies that don't really touch their daily lives. But whenever our firm, LEK Consulting, has surveyed consumers, asking them in layman terms if they are worried about the environment and if they would do something to protect it, we have seen a different, positive, response.

Besides, the local media are providing more and more space and time to issues such as global warming and ecology. The trend may have started later than in Western countries, nevertheless it is getting stronger. Green reporting peaked around Earth Day (April 22) last year, after which the devastating Sichuan earthquake, Beijing Olympics and the global economic crisis took center stage. But environment remains a major issue for the media.

To measure the changes in consumer attitudes more accurately, LEK surveyed more than 600 people across China to see what type of consumers were willing to buy energy saving and other eco-friendly products and the amount of premium they would pay for them.

Related readings:  Commentary: China bets big on green future  China paving the way in green energy  China vows green commitments: road to Copenhagen  A green opportunity not only for China

More than 80 percent of the respondents said they were willing to buy energy saving products. Interestingly, 66 percent of those who said "no" were willing to buy green products during better economic times. This means the impact of the global economic crisis is influencing consumers' decision to buy the relatively expensive environmentally friendly products.

The premium consumers are willing to pay, however, is not large, with 75 percentage of the respondents saying it should not be more than 10 percent. Judging by global standards this is not surprising because a higher percentage of consumers are driven by prices in China.

But the upside is that 15 percent of consumers are willing to pay more than 20 percent premium, which is quite high even by global standards because such customers' percentage is just 5 to 10 in the developed countries.

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