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. With Buying & Not-Buying
Clearing my desk of assorted magazines, clippings, and junk, I came across two related articles that I’d set aside to store in my “consumer ethics” file. Both concern SUV sales. Every single day, it seems, I read something else about the enlightened, green-conscious consumer who is transforming the marketplace as we speak. Sales of hybrid cars often come up in the list of anecdotes, right after the inevitable survey statistic about we Americans are concerned about the environment. And as one of these articles notes, Toyota’s famous Prius has sold more than a million units worldwide.
But the reason I’d set these articles aside is a couple of other facts and figures that jumped out at me. One is from the June 11 issue of Business Week: While sales of small cars are up fairly significantly this year, “luxury SUV sales have held steady,” accounting for 28% of new-vehicle sales.
That’s a pretty high number, seems to me, particularly at a moment when not only is Main Street supposedly green-crazy, but high gas prices have been a consistent media story.
The other clipping is from the June 11 issue of Brandweek, and examines this very point more specifically, under the headline, “What Gas Crisis? SUVs Still Cruising.”
While the Prius is doing well, the story notes, Honda is dropping its hybrid Accord, which has sold poorly. There are some hybrid SUVs on the market, but those aren’t taking off — whereas “the massive Ford Expedition, which gets a sluggish 15 mpg, has seen its vehicle sale shoot up 20% through May,” writes Steve Miller.
Both articles include suggestions that the trend may still be moving away from huge gas guzzlers, etc., and that may turn out to be right.
But I believe the time has come for the legions of experts touting green-mania start to gauge it a more complete way. I’ve read the poll data. I’ve heard about increasing sales for this or that “green” product. I want to hear about falling sales of conspiciously not-green products. Even better, I want that kind of information to be included in the analysis — even if does not immediately support the green hype. I want the commentators, especially the ones who are basically marketing gurus and consultants, to acknowledge that eco-consciousness is not simply a matter of what consumers buy. It’s also about what they stop buying.
Okay, just had to get that out. Back to cleaning the desk off.
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Kim Fellner's book 
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Reader Comments
Hmm, those are interesting numbers. I would like to see how these sales numbers correspond to education, age, geographical regions, and income levels. I can imagine hybrid cars selling well in big cities, but I don’t see them selling well in places with bad weather (that’s just my perception of hybrid cars, that they seem weaker). As for SUV sales, I wonder if they’re sold mostly to small business owners or families, or young people…
I’d also be interested in seeing how much marketing has gone into promoting hybrid. Aside from the occasional print ads, I haven’t really seen (or remember) commercials of hybrids.
I also wonder how much car dealership has to do with the sales numbers. If I had the time, I’d go around pretending I’m buying a car, and I’d like to hear what car salesmen have to say about SUVs vs hybrids. I think most car sales still go through car dealers, and they probably swing a lot of decisions.
As for un-consuming, maybe I’m a pessimist, but I believe that we can’t depend on a behavior change to fix our eco-problems. I might be completely wrong here, but take the case of cigarettes – I think the knowledge of “cigarettes are bad for you” is not as effective as steep price hike in making people stop buying cigarettes.
So I guess I’d get less excited about reading consumer behavior change than seeing that the government is giving a big tax rebate for hybrids, and major penalty for SUVs. (even though it’s much more fun and interesting to read about consumer behavior)
This is exactly why you should agree with my position that those trumpeting the supposed greening of the American consumer ought to give a more complete picture. Every time a marketing guru or design consultant or whatever poitns to an example of an eco-friendly product that’s supposedly having surprising success, it furthers the general belief that consumer behavior not only will change, but is already changing, thanks the marketplace, thus marginalizing views like yours that maybe it’s worth talking talking about regulatory or other sytemwide changes. Perhaps talking about niche-market success stories gets them more clients than talking about regulation.
In any case, I’m not the one saying focus on consumer behavior. I’m saying: If the gurus of green are going to talk about consumer behavior, they need to talk about all of it. That’s the only way real progress will occur.
Don’t you think, though, that at least talking about green “successes” seeds the idea that being greener is good? Small behavior changes are the start of larger ones. Putting a recycle bin into every home in my city made it an easy decision to recycle, and caused you to think about what products can go into which container, and maybe, more generally about consumption and its effects. They send reports on the progress and provide additional tips on saving water, etc. (On the downside: Changing the schedule from weekly to every-other-week reduced the amount that was going into the recycling stream, but the solution of the city was to send out flyers that said that they were missing their goal of X pounds diverted from waste. Well, when the bin is full, guess where the extra stuff goes? Yes, into the WEEKLY trash.)
Would not someone educated to “think green” in smaller ways be more amenable to legislation that may cost them personally in some way? The radical approach of Greenpeace in the ’80s alienated a lot of people, while the current “greener is better” news blitz seems more likely to succeed in winning over the minds of the consumer.