Chinese Youth & Eco-products: “People don’t know, but they care.”

Our focus this week at enoVate has been on eco-products and their relevance amongst the Chinese youth. We called upon the services of the enoVate street team to help us with some quick strike interviews to compliment the research from our Insights and Strategy Group. The results overwhelmingly showed that despite not having any kind of deep knowledge of eco-friendly brands or organic products, young people would still be willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products.

Although one must consider location bias (Shanghai is not representative of China as a whole) and the brief nature of the survey, the results still show that there is a willingness to buy eco-products. This is tempered, however, by a lack of understanding or knowledge about the true meaning of words such as ‘organic’ or ‘green’. When asked about how the young Chinese who took part in our survey viewed eco-friendly materials, our surveyor said: “People don’t know, but they care.”

If this is the case, then the responsibility for brands is not necessarily to make a strong emotional resonance amongst the youth but focus more on educating, enabling young people to better understand the need for ‘greener’ alternatives. Herein lies the difficult task of how to educate and most importantly what medium to use?

greennovate x eno

Companies such as Greennovate are very savvy in their approach to the Chinese youth. They have chosen fashion as one method of communication. In collaborating with eno, they have helped raise awareness about global warming through their ‘neti the yeti’ campaign. However, they have also combined this with a more practical approach in educating high school students with their FedEX environmental outreach programme. Their practice of resonating at an emotional level with their fashion led products, whilst using more traditional teaching methods to educate young people about environmental issues helps Greennovate to best connect and meet the needs of the Chinese youth. (see our interview with Greennovate Founder, Mihela Hladin)

We have established the importance in educating but design mustn’t be overlooked. Environmentally friendly shouldn’t be a by-word for poor quality. Design helps secure an initial emotional response, only after can you begin to educate. In this way, the learning process is not enforced but chosen. Terms such as ‘social responsibility’, while effective at soliciting a guilty conscious in Europe and America won’t resonate as well with a youth market striving to escape responsibility in their minimal free time outside of work or school.

As we always stress at enoVate, the Chinese youth are passionate, a passion which can be directed toward an eco-friendly lifestyle (see our post on Chinese LOHAS). If companies and brands are willing to make an emotional connection whilst also educating, this may help lead to a greener future for the whole of China.