Youth willing to pay more for fair electronics
Market research shows European youth wants companies to produce responsible
14-01-2008
Young people are seriously concerned about the social and environmental problems surrounding the production and disposal of their consumer electronics. A majority of young European consumers state that the companies involved should take their responsibility and they would be willing to pay 10% more for their electronic devices if they can be certain they are produced responsibly. These are the results of a market research among young people in several European countries that was published today by makeITfair, a network of organisations from across Europe.
”The leadership position for fairly produced consumer electronics is
open”, says Irene Schipper from SOMO, the coordinator of the makeITfair
network. ”The interesting question is now, which manufacturer will be
able to serve this promising niche market first? So far there are no
fair electronics on the market.”
The market research was carried out by Dutch Trendbox at the end of
2007 in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Germany. In total 822
young people between 15 and 35 years of age were interviewed.
The research shows that young people in the Netherlands and Germany are
more aware (34% resp. 35%) than their counterparts in Finland (21%) or
Sweden (19%) of the social and environmental problems in the
electronics life cycle of consumer electronics like laptops, mobile
phones and game consoles. Four out of ten respondents were truly
shocked by the existing problems like child labour and human rights
abuses that take place in the mines producing metals for the
electronics industry, the poor working conditions in the electronics
factories in Asia and the dumping of e-waste in developing countries.
When informed about the problems related to the supply chain of
electronics the young consumers show a high level of involvement: 45%
of the respondents say that they are willing to take part in some form
of action or campaign in order to make a change. Slightly more than
half of the respondents, in each of the countries, state they would be
happy to pay 10% more for fairly and responsibly produced electronics.
52% of the interviewed young consumers argue for an import ban on
unfair electronics and 72% argue there should be a ban on dumping
computers in developing countries.
Young people see the selling and producing companies as highly
responsible for the situation: 85% of them state these companies should
take action in solving the problems. Currently, none of the market
leading consumer electronics companies is dealing sufficiently with the
social and environmental problems in its supply chain. At this moment,
it can be concluded that there is no fair choice for the growing and
already substantial segment of consumers wanting fair products. The
Dutch government wants to procure fair computers exclusively by 2010.
The question is, which electronics brand will be the first to offer a
socially and environmentally fair computer, mobile phone or MP3 player?
