Environmental Choice Logo Rates Highly with Consumers

Environmental Choice logo rates highly with consumers

Government-owned ecolabel Environmental Choice New Zealand provides the strongest environmental guarantee of the well-known ecolabels in New Zealand.

That was one of a number of findings in a recent ConsumerLink Panel survey. The survey asked members of the 120,000 strong Panel to assess Environmental Choice against other prominent ecolabels - FSC, Fairtrade, PEFC, CarboNZero, Energy Star and ecoware.

More than 30% of respondents rated Environmental Choice as providing consumers with the strongest environmental guarantee, with CarboNZero the next highest at 20%.

The label also rated highly for trustworthiness (32%) behind Energy Star and Fairtrade, and also polled well for having high standards (23%).

Recognition of the label was just under 70%, ahead of all but Energy Star and Fairtrade again, which have a much more public profile.

When asked what qualities the label stood for (from a supplied list), more than 50% of respondents ticked “environmentally friendly” and almost 40% nominated “less harmful to the environment”.

The survey also asked whether the Environmental Choice logo would influence respondents to buy products from the various product ranges licensed by the ecolabel. More than half of the buyers of cleaning products said yes, and the response for DIY products, Hygiene Products, Office Products and Toiletry Products ranged from 47% to 49% saying yes. Given a little more information on the Environmental Choice ecolabel and asked if that would change their view on buying a product in those categories with the logo on it, 68-71% said yes across the five categories.

Environmental Choice New Zealand General Manager Francesca Lipscombe says the research provided a very useful insight into awareness of the label – and of ecolabels in general. “While we don’t have the level of consumer penetration some of the other labels have, it’s reassuring to see that there is a good level of recognition of what we stand for, and plenty of evidence that consumers value the reassurance of environmental preferability our label provides.”

ENDS

About Environmental Choice New Zealand

Environmental Choice New Zealand (ECNZ) is New Zealand’s official environmental label and the only Type 1 ecolabel in the country. To gain the ecolabel, organisations undergo rigorous multiple-criteria, third-party verification of their products and/or services against environmental standards through the life-cycle of the product/service. ENCZ has more than 80 licensees, covering around 1700 products and services, around two-thirds of which are building-related with the balance comprising largely consumer products and sanitary papers.

Governed by the New Zealand Ecolabelling Trust, ECNZ is also a member of the Global Ecolabel Network (GEN) an international consortium of ecolabelling programmes.

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