Benchmarking and additional environmental information in ... - ANEC

3 Consumer perception of environmental information
Environmental Product Declarations from national EPD-schemes differ
significantly with respect to the amount of information they convey to the users.
There is little doubt that the main target group for the declarations in all
schemes are professional consumers/purchasers, taking an informed decision
on behalf of many people, e.g. colleagues, administrators, etc.
It is, however, obvious that EPD’s for some product groups also have the
common consumer, or at least the environmentally conscious consumer, as
their target. Examples are consumers purchasing refrigerators wanting to be
sure that the refrigerants and foaming agents do not deplete the ozone layer,
consumers purchasing electronic devices wanting to be sure that they do not
emit hazardous flame retardants during their use, etc.
Even though both professional and private consumers may have a high level of
awareness on the relation between their consumption and environmental
impacts, there is an upper limit for much environmental information they can
and will handle in the purchase situation.
The issue has been discussed in a number of reports, some of which are
reviewed in short in the following paragraphs. A main source is a dissertation
from 2000 (Jönsson, 2000), in which the author gives an overview and
discussion of studies relating to communication of environmental information to
both private and public consumers.
The author thus cites a Norwegian study regarding consumers’ response to
environmental product information, which shows that “private consumers desire
environmental product information in the form of simple symbols, without
detailed information and text sections”. Complementary studies showed that
consumers were positive to this type of information, but were confused as to
whether it was neutral information or a form of eco-labelling based on
environmental requirements. The information was still often considered to be
technical and difficult to interpret.
The author also cites Swedish studies, in which some of main conclusions are:
• The environmental consequences of purchasing decisions rarely affect
consumers individually and immediately.
• Environmental aspects are likely to receive higher attention when they
are connected to individual aspects such as personal health (e.g. organic
food products) and private economy (e.g. energy efficiency).
• Consumers ability and motivation to assimilate the (environmental)
information in the form of graphic or quantitative environmental product
declarations are very limited.
• Consumers acceptance of detailed and complex environmental
information is higher for more complex and expensive products.
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