Green Market Research, an emerging field

What is Green Market Research? This article looks at what makes a product green, the principles behind green markets, and how green market research can provide the understanding for reaching out to consumers.

What exactly is Green Market Research? Green Market Research is an exciting new field. It connects environmentally conscious consumers with companies, government, political institutions and environmental organizations. It helps retailers to tailor their merchandise for optimized public acceptance of green products and assists government, political institutions and environmental organizations interested in knowing how the general public thinks about environmental issues.

There are a lot of definitions for what a green product or service is, but generally speaking it is a product or service that is environmentally friendly or has less impact on the environment compared to a regular product. All products will have an environmental impact one way or another but the severity of impact differs. Greener products use fewer resources and produce less waste compared to their less environmentally friendly counterparts.

Green markets are based on the principal of sustainable resource management. Sustainable resource management is a management method which uses a resource in such a way that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged. There is now sufficient scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, with other words we use more resources than we have available on this planet. Therefore sustainable resource management is necessary in order to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

As a government, political institution, environmental organization or consumer products company representative it is not always easy to get started on green initiatives. An organization might want to take steps to reduce the ecological footprint, to reduce energy use, promote use of alternative energy sources, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Or maybe they need to cut operating costs, enhance employee health and productivity, improve business reputation or competitiveness in these economic hard times. Green Market Research will help these organizations in their quest to improve their green business practices.

On the other hand, environmentally conscious consumers often have difficulties finding the green products they are looking for. The product might not be available in their favorite store, be too expensive or not offered by their favorite product line. Research shows that demand for greener products is still increasing even in a down economy. Once consumer confidence increases, consumer spending will increase even more. It is expected that there will be an increased push from consumers for more environmentally friendly products and services. It makes business sense to be prepared for this and to jump on this green train right now.

-September 2009

This content was provided by Go Green Market Research. Visit their website at www.gogreenmarketresearch.com.