Thanks for this, and sorry about the delayed response - I was looking for a graphic that I saw in a report months ago, and just located it. It comes from a report issued by GreenFactor (www.greenfactorstudy.com/), containing data from consumer studies conducted in 11 countries. It plots Green interest in two dimensions: one, the willingness of a consumer to pay a 5% premium for green products, and the other, whether preference for a product would increase if it was proven to be green. Here's what they found:



I had hoped that the figure contained China data, but as you can see, it doesn't. However, it does show information for other emerging economies, including India, Brazil, and Mexico. In all three of these countries, green is shown as a compelling purchase motivator - and in India, the country most often compared to China, there is evidence to support the fact that consumers will pay a premium for green goods.

In the "on the other hand" column, though, the same chart shows that Canadian consumers will pay a premium for green. Maybe that's true in the B2C world, but in B2B, I've found that purchasers generally expect that green (at least on a blended CAPEX/OPEX basis) will be less expensive, not a "premium" purchase. All things considered, it's encouraging to see results like these showing an awareness that sustainability requires attention and investment...hopefully, we'll see actual attention and investment follow!



As a "PS" - at the time that the report was releaseed, GreenFactor was a joint venture of Cohn & Wolfe, Strategic Oxygen, and GCI Group. A visit to the GreenFactor site now makes no reference of the fact that Strategic Oxygen was purchased by Forrester in December, and GCI Group seems to ahve disappeared entirely - but hey, Green is a dynamic subject area!