Survey Indicates that Many Americans Consider
Companies' Global Warming Actions When Purchasing
According to a recent report, "Americans' Actions to Limit Global Warming in September 2012," for the past four years, roughly 25 percent of U.S. consumers have either rewarded or punished companies for those companies' actions related to climate change. The report, based on findings from a nationally representative survey of 1,061 adults conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication between August 31 and September 12, 2012, indicates that a sizeable portion of the consumer market continues to care year-to-year about the stance of companies on global warming. The report also concludes that individuals who have not used purchasing power to either reward or punish companies in the past year plan to increase personal acts of consumer activism in the next year.
The report indicates that in the last year, about one in three
American adults has rewarded a company that took steps to reduce
global warming. Although the September 2012 survey results are a
significant uptick from a 2010 low of 26 percent, the percentage of
consumers reporting that they reward companies by buying their
products is down from a high of 35 percent in May 2011. These
results appear to indicate that consumers support companies that
align with their individual values in addition to considering
price, quality, and brand loyalty.
In addition to rewarding companies for taking actions to reduce
global warming, 24 percent of those surveyed in September 2012
indicated that they had at some point in the past year chosen not
to purchase products by companies that oppose steps to reduce
global warming. Similar to the trend observed for rewarding
companies, the percentage of consumers reporting that they used
purchases to punish companies that oppose steps to reduce global
warming peaked in May 2011 at 27 percent after overcoming a low in
2010 of 22 percent.
When asked to contemplate future behavior, 52 percent of
individuals surveyed expressed the intent to either reward or
punish companies sometime in the next year for the companies'
action or inaction to reduce global warming. Since researchers from
Yale and George Mason began collecting data four years ago,
slightly more than half of Americans have consistently reported
plans to use purchasing power to either reward or punish companies.
In November 2008, consumers indicated the greatest willingness (58
percent) to either buy or not buy based on a company's actions
on global warming. In the 2010 trough of the Great Recession,
willingness to utilize purchasing power to support global warming
action fell to 51 percent. Since then, consumer support for
utilizing purchasing power has remained at just over half of the
surveyed American adults.
The Yale and George Mason researchers also studied three other
prongs of climate actions by citizens: (1) saving energy, (2)
citizen behavior, and (3) communication behavior. Even though a
majority of American adults report that they always or often set
their thermostats below 68 degrees and take other actions like
replacing traditional light bulbs with compact fluorescent light
bulbs, the researchers noted a decline in Americans' belief
that certain energy-saving actions can reduce global warming.
Americans are less confident today than four years ago that their
individual actions will reduce their contribution to global
warming.
Consistent with a reduced belief in the efficacy of individual
energy-saving actions, Americans are now less likely to often or
even occasionally discuss global warming with friends and family.
While Americans may be less optimistic about their individual
impact on global warming, the report's authors observed that a
growing number of Americans say they contacted a government
official in the past year to support mitigation of global warming.
Additionally, in the next year, more Americans intend to urge
government officials to take action on global warming.
Overall, the Yale and George Mason polling data indicate that
Americans continue to be concerned about global warming and are
willing to use political and consumer activism to push for action
on global warming.
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