Imagine you’ve hit it big or you’ve finally saved up enough towards a decent down payment towards purchasing your own home and you have one major requirement – you want it to be a truly sustainable place to live, a green home so to speak.
What’s important for you about the green home? What matters? How will you decide? These are reasonable questions, aren’t they?
I find there are three types of eco friendly house buyers out there and I’m dying out of curiosity to find out where do YOU find yourself in this equation. Below are three different mindsets, please read through them and let me know which one you relate to most. There’s a survey at the end of this post and if you could answer the questions we will all be very curious to find out about the dominating trend in our area. Now it is more than likely you will be a mix a all three personalities but please pick one that you feel would stand out for you. Let’s have some fun!
1. Economizers. This is the class that is concerned with the idea of saving money by wise use of resources. This category also entails land lords who are counting on a life-cycle cost analysis and the value of various earth friendly features that can boost their cash flow. For economizers the mighty cash is the king and all the rest of the ecological issues is less important.
2. Idealists. This is your typical Organicsons household. They take environmentally conscious living very passionately and believe that conservation of resources and preserving the planet is a social responsibility. They are willing to forgo some personal comforts for more eco friendly lifestyle choices. The Organicsons are also very health conscious and easily value wellness benefits of living in eco friendly household. They will pay a bit more for things if they feel they can benefit the planet
3. Eco-Chic (pronounced – Eco-Shique and not Eco Chik) – as you may guess, these are the environmental Giorgio Armani types. They like to pursue eco trends and not necessarily the up-to-the-minute developments in fight with global warming. Not to say they don’t care about the environment. Most of them do; they just like to make a fashion statement out of it. To some eco-chics looking like a true steward of the environment is an undeniable social status statement. Organic cotton or hemp t-shirts are just plain sexy. Being eco-friendly is so cool!
So here’s the big question: Which one of these personality types do you relate the most? Don’t worry, this survey is totally confidential and will not automatically update your Facebook status with your answers. 🙂
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I just went through a 2-day “Earth Advantage Broker” training and the classifications of consumers were interesting. They were classified as 19% LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability), 15% Naturalites (hold green values but aren’t always consistent), 25% Drifters (hold green values but are more influenced by price and trends), 24% Conventionals (they don’t make decisions based on green values but are civic minded and cost sensitive) and 17% Unconcerneds (does not prioritize environment and society).
I tend to fall somewhere between the organicsons and the idealist (alas, never have fully kicked my idealism)
As a green builder with over 10 years in the industry, I find much of the marketing is directed towards and much of my client base comes from either the Organicsons or the Eco-Chic. Both are few in number; the Organicsons tend to be miserly and hammer away at my bottom line, while the Eco-Chic spend lavishly on green technology, as long as they can show it off to their neighbors and have their sense self-righteousness match their sense of entitlement. If the Green industry were to step away form the “save the world” marketing angle a bit and embrace a pragmatic, long term investment in cost savings approach, we might be able to spread our base from just the radical idealists and bring in more mainstream clients. Bring those with a moderate and slightly more conservative slant- the Economizers, if you will and make a bigger, more inclusive, yet still green tent for the industry.
That’s an interesting point, Lance. Thanks for sharing. I would tend to agree with you, and I think that, in the end, the radical change we’ll see towards “green” living will come from pragmatic need and market driven forces. It’s a shame, but that seems to be the case. Consider all the talk of solar and wind energy, bio-fuels, etc two years ago when oil was $140/barrel. It was all the rage, but dried up when the economy went off a cliff and people stared losing their homes.
Anybody else relate to the “flawed idealist” personality? That’s me. I’m motivated by an idealogical recognition of environment issues, as opposed to economizing or hopping on a trend. But, my behavior is far less than my awareness, because, like most of us, I make choices to compromise my awareness to, say, drive a car, eat meat or fly on an airplane. So, my carbon footprint is much smaller than many americans, but bigger than some, or bigger than it could be.
Media called my advocacy eco-chic but after reading your definition, my activities fall into the idealist category. I’ve always regarded an eco-chic person as someone who is more ‘bleeding edge’ aware, eco sensitive.