COMPANIES FEELING PRESSURE TO GO GREEN – NOW CONSUMERS WANT MORE

The RITE Group Conference on sustainable textiles in the UK found that 80 percent of consumers are partly influenced by green issues.

Retailers there are now stocking up on organic clothing made from hemp and bamboo. Levi Strauss is also on the environmental bandwagon calling its jeans 'blue on the outside but green on the inside."

Levi sees a marketplace shift from "shaggy organic" to "supra sustainable". It uses organic cotton for the pockets of its Levi's eco range of jeans, which also features a coconut shell waistband button and reinforced stitching in place of metal rivets.

But… if you think that all it takes to impress consumers is to go green, think again. Research shows that consumers want even more. According to BBMG, educated consumers are looking for companies that mirror their socially conscious values. “Chief among these values are health and safety, corporate honesty, eco-friendliness, promoting local producers and convenience, all of which factor into a consumer’s consideration.”

The Global Strategy Group, polled 2,000 adults and found that while price and quality were still important in consumers’ purchasing decisions - a growing number are showing concern about issues pertinent to social responsibility.

“Trust is perhaps the most important issue between consumers and marketers; there has to be an alignment between what a company is promising and what it’s doing,” said Mitch Baranowski, of BBMG.

The survey also asked respondents to rank companies they felt were the most socially conscious. The results were: Whole Foods Market, Newman’s Own, Wal-Mart, Burt’s Bees, GE, Johnson & Johnson and Ben & Jerry’s.

“For companies that are engaging this green consumer, it’s less about gaining traction, and more about building relationships with the consumers,” Baranowski said. (And you thought your in-laws were the only people you had to impress).

There must be something to this green theory though - the global organic cotton market topped $1.1 billion in 2006 - an 84 percent increase from 2005. By the end of 2007, the global organic cotton market will reach $1.9 billion, and could reach $6.8 billion in 2010, said the Organic Cotton Exchange.

Wal- Mart., Nike and Patagonia were among the top five companies in the world using organic cotton last year.

For more information: www.organicexchange.org.