Conventional marketing wisdom is that fear and greed are more likely than anything else to motivate people.
The idea of "guilt" as a predictor of what a person will buy, pay more for, work at, or vote for has been viewed as quaint, a well-meaning mistake made by those who haven't yet learned better.
But a new phenomenon might put this to the test. Our research reveals a new environmentalism emerging in Canada, significantly different from the version of the past 20 years.
In 1984, following a deadly explosion at a chemical plant in India, Decima saw a spike of Canadian concern about the environment. For the next decade, voters reacted to domestic accidents and incidents with rising anxiety about industrial pollution, and contamination of air, water and soil. Corporations shed trust, and governments were charged with getting tougher on corporate environmental behaviour.
But by the mid-1990s people stopped telling us the environment was bad and getting worse, and started telling us it was at least starting to get better. The political temperature of that issue dropped accordingly.
Today, Canadians want to know that governments will monitor, punish and remedy toxic pollution. Healthy air, water and soil will continue to be "table stakes" for governments when it comes to the environment.
But a renewed interest in the environment is less about local pollutants, corporate misdeeds, or even government policy. The environment is increasingly a broad-based personal agenda, one that may affect politics and markets, but doesn't start there.
A huge number of Canadians today reveal a sense of guilt about their personal environmental track record. Three of four say that "my generation has done unacceptable damage to the environment" and 91 per cent feel "a moral obligation to improve the environment for future generations."
The massive baby boom, the nose of which touched 60 this year, has shaped political agendas and consumer markets for decades. Today, its attention is shifting, with profound consequences. Moving fast to the top of the personal agenda of the boomers are four things: stronger family relationships, deeper friendships, a healthier lifestyle and reducing their impact on the environment.
The first three may be obvious, but they help explain why the environment is on the list. The growing importance of health, family, friends, and the environment all signal that many boomers are thinking about the time they have left and the legacy they leave behind.
Baby boomers see themselves as the original environmentalists, who perhaps lost their way somewhat when childrearing, careers and finances became life's top priorities. Today, careers are settled, finances are less worrisome, and children are moving out. Personal agendas are less crowded by the tyranny of the must-do-this-minute. Their passion for the environment is today the equal of younger generations.
This trend is enabled by three other factors.
The first key is climate change. Weather as news is a huge phenomenon, and the deadly tsunamis and hurricanes were persuasive evidence that something is happening to the planet and something must be done about it. For most, the scientific case is closed.
Second, years of a healthy economy have convinced Canadians the economy can withstand change, and that the wolf won't immediately be at the door if we choose policies that favour the environment. Canadians support the idea of the Kyoto Accord, not because they haven't heard about possible economic downsides, but because they think those downsides might be manageable or overstated, or both.
Third, high energy prices have blunted one traditional counter argument to the idea of burning less fossil fuel. Instead of asking whether we can afford to move toward renewables, people find it more plausible to ask if we can afford not to.
There is a conviction that science and technology have repeatedly found amazing solutions to intractable problems, if we work it hard enough.
What are the implications of this New Environmentalism? Too early to tell.
If marketers seize this trend to introduce novel offerings, improving environmental footprint without higher prices or less convenience, they will find an affluent market ready to buy. If "green products" only ever come with higher prices and lower quality or convenience, commerce likely won't change much. The data are little more than a signal sent from a buyer to a seller, about what their interests and passions are.
How it will affect political agendas is also unclear, but shape those agendas, it will. Voters will gravitate toward policies that result in smaller landfills, cleaner and fewer cars on the road, greener buildings and homes, more and more energy-efficient public transit investments, and industrial policies and regulations that lighten environmental pressures.
If the New Environmentalism grows out of a sense of guilt, it isn't ultimately about the past, it isn't about assigning blame, and it isn't pessimistic. It's a lot of 50-somethings joining a lot of younger people in an optimistic view that something that must be done -- can be done -- if passions, minds and money are aligned.
Bruce Anderson is the CEO of the public opinion research firm Decima Research.
