How Kiwi consumers will flex their buying power

67% of adult New Zealanders could switch brands if they found their regular brand or service provider was having a bad affect on the environment, people or society, or was behaving unethically.

The latest Sustainable Business Council – Fairfax Media survey on consumer and business behaviour  conducted by Horizon Research finds only 5% say that they would not switch, indicating the  immense risk brands run if they are perceived to be behaving poorly.

92% of those who said that they consider sustainable factors when purchasing “all of the time” would switch.  70.0% of those who consider sustainable factors “some of the time” would switch, together with 29% of those who said that they do not consider sustainability when purchasing.  All these figures are higher than in 2012, and people are generally surer that they would switch.

23.5% - about 860,000 adults - said that they had switched brand or to another service provider in the past 12 months because they had found their regular brand or service provider was having a bad affect on the environment, people or society, or behaving unethically.

Respondents were asked what it was about the service or product that made them decide to switch.  A selection of comments follows:

“Slave labour in an Asian country.”

“Poor recycling performance on new milk bottles.”

“More than one product that I changed from was tested on animals.  Will not buy anything with unnecessary packaging, which includes pre-packaged fruit/veggies, so will never buy those regardless of supplier or need.”

“Buying less cheap clothes as have found out that they have been produced in sweatshops in India, Bangladesh.  Going to op shops more as cheaper and often better quality.”

“Stopped buying Sealord product as they masquerade as a NZ company when in fact their production is off shore in dodgy third world factories and their fishing fleet is manned by foreigners.”

“Not fair trade, proven internationally.”

“I changed energy provider to one generating the most energy using sustainable resources.”

“We have a dry-clean carpet business and I had to switch suppliers because what they said wasn't true.  They claimed to be part of a business they broke off from 2 years ago and I didn't know this.  Will never do business with them again because they were unethical.”

“Never buy Cadbury chocolate anymore; always buy Allpress coffee because a local company that is socially responsible re its suppliers.”

“Do not buy Anchor milk anymore due to silly package which now has a mixture of plastics”

“Keeping an eagle eye on palm oil users.  Avoiding purchasing products that use palm oil.”

“Cadbury chocolate was using Palm Oil so I never now buy Cadbury.”

“Cottonsoft toilet paper which uses rainforest timber, most brands of tuna which use unsustainable fishing practices, some products e.g. some brands of rice crackers whose packaging is not recyclable, Anchor milk whose new opaque packaging isn't as easily recycled in New Zealand, some bakery goods from Countdown that contain palm oil.”

“Hosting service as stated before. CEO hunted endangered elephant species.  Stopped buying all Nestle products for several reasons including their support of GE ingredients and their attempts to privatise water.”

“We decided to only purchase locally grown vegetables as long as the prices were reasonably competitive. We will no longer purchase Chinese grown vegetables”

“Stopped buying "Kiwi Soft", "Cottonsoft", "Paseo", "Sorbent", "Quilton", and "Signature Range" toilet paper as it used unsustainable sources of trees for paper.”

“An egg producer that was claiming to be free range was outed as having all its hens in cages.”

“I thought I was buying free range eggs but found out that only the farms whose eggs with SPCA tick are regularly inspected and meet the standards.  Not all free range egg farms are up to standard.  I now only buy eggs with the SPCA tick.”

Effect on companies, brands and products

There is little doubt that companies discovered by the public to be harming the environment or mistreating people or animals could face a backlash as a result of their behaviour. 

In addition, 39% of people thought they have or can have some influence on the behaviour of companies which are harming the environment or mistreating people or animals.  Those who believe they have or can have influence are the most likely to stop buying products from those companies.

This survey is of 2152 respondents who are members of Horizon Research’s online HorizonPoll national panel, representative of the national population 18+ years.

Post-sample iterative rim weighting was used to match population averages for age, gender, ethnicity, education level, personal income and, to ensure a sample aligned with 2011 voter support, party vote in the 2011 General Election.

The maximum margin of error at a 95% confidence level is ±2.2% overall.

Respondents completed surveys between April 30 and May 16, 2013.

The Sustainable Business Council has now released the full Horizon Research report on this survey.