Not a lot of people know that..

I just had a press release from an agency that's not about a thing. It's about what 'we' think about things Climatic, niftily entitled 'Climate What?'

Now, as I continue to struggle with finding the time, or the money to find the people with the time, to help me upload this stuff on our steam-driven site's admin system, I figure why not pop it here on the blog for now?

What caught my eye was that these guys have paid (using bmrb and a sample size of 1,000, which is fair, though having sat through too many focus groups in my ad days how the questions get asked is pretty key, and you seldom know that background) to have confirmed what I have suspected for a while, namely that, despite all the gazzillions being spent and acres of media devoted to it all, most still haven't got a clue.

Or as they say (which is shorthand for I can just cut and paste from now on):

Coverage in the media has never been so high, with the term 'carbon neutral' by all acccounts appearing in the UK media almost 500 times in the past two weeks alone (how do you check that?). However the complex message of climate change and environmentalism is still not being properly communicated to the public.

A recent Environment Agency poll has stated that, despite the hype, less than half of the people in the UK are changing their behaviour to reduce their carbon footprint, and that less than a quarter of these are recycling. Their figures also reveal that 73% of the UK population do not understand what is meant by the term 'carbon neutral'.

"Our findings show that there is still a huge gap in public understanding about the terms used in the media, by government and by big business", says MD Sara Tye, managing director.

Which makes me wonder what the heck the disconnect is, especially when we are seeing bazillions being poured into all sorts of enviro-comms efforts with, seemingly, so little effect. Maybe that odd notion we at Junkk have often floated may be something to do with it, namely scare, guilt, nanny and fine don't quite cut it. A little fun and incentive could go along way, if done right, but the protagonists mentioned don't do that too well, and even if those they commission can, the dead hand of a committee will always lurk in the background.

I'll also nick the following bit (nothing like choosing facts you like) for my own presentation to the VCs next week, but apparently for those companies with an environmental policy (not too sure myself what that actually translates into, but hey) there is a 'potential market of more than 9 million ethical customers who are willing to put their money where their mouth is'.

However, the newly motivated eyebrow-twitching journalist would like to know more about the 65 % of the respondents in the study who do understand what 'carbon neutral' means, and said they would pay more for products that they knew were going to help the environment [my italics].

As we've discussed here many times before, there is a subtle, but yawning gap between not doing as bad as you might, and actually doing good. And while better is better than nothing, education does need to get to grips with the total ramifications of the purchase of a product or service. Otherwise we will soon find ourselves with something like, oo, say... ethical space tourism: 'I blasted 6 billion litres of greenhouse gasses to get up here, and all I needed to do was plant a forest the size of Belgium to buy it off!'.

What I did rather like was my age range (45-54. Not telling you where in that, though) is the savviest, and would be prepared to pay a premium if they knew it was helping the environment (note my bold). Apparently only 24% of the 25-34 age group understood the term carbon neutral, despite being the most likely to be willing to pay more for carbon neutral products. Which leads me to ponder whether greens wash best with those more inclined not to ask awkward questions. Or care. Green is in danger of becoming a fashion item, and consequently just as easily dropped later on.

And without trying to get to Ecky-thump as to why, it seems there is is something of a North/South environmental awareness divide. Only 18 per cent of residents in Yorkshire/ Humberside are carbon neutral savvy. This contrasts with the 32 per cent of the population living in the South West as the most eco aware area of the UK. Maybe those Priuses are not so good on the Dales?

WHAT IS CARBON NEUTRAL?

Without attribution I'm taking this definition slightly on trust, but it seems to be fair enough, but of course we get into the detail of further terminology such as 'offsetting', which opens up whole new cans of worms. (I'm seeing Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers today, by the way).

The term Carbon Neutral can be applied when an activity has a Net Zero Emissions of carbon. This can be achieved through an investment which offsets the carbon produced by the relevant activity. This offsetting is most often achieved through Carbon sequestration which is the term describing processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by capturing and storing carbon (while releasing oxygen) both naturally and artificially.

Of course I have come up with enviROI, which Carbon Neutral can loosely be factored into. No wonder the general public is often confused!