Research conducted to learn about US consumers’ views about the carbon emissions of their electronic products, to allow brands to better communicate potential programs for brands to pay for use-phase offsets. Understand differences between consumers with different levels of concern about the environment.

Summary / Recommendations:

• Educate consumers on the impacts of electronics, highlighting the use phase. Think infographic-level education

• Focus on specific efforts, not the abstract idea of climate change

• Provide a link to learn more about carbon footprinting and offsets and ways they can reduce even more of their footprint

• Third-party validation will help with trust issues

• Work to keep messaging practical, apolitical and non-judgmental. Where possible and logical, link to a topic like pollution which every group seems to have some concern about

• Back-up offsets with examples of other things the company is doing to reduce their carbon footprint

• Overall, there is a great educational opportunity to:

  • inform customers about carbon impacts of electronics, especially the use-phase (which they usually don’t think about)

  • showcase existing efforts to reduce footprint in the other phases (production, transportation, end-of-life) and communicate the company’s commitment to offset the rest

Conducted with John Rooks from The SOAP Group.