Conventional wood loses sales to ecolabelled product

Oregon State University researchers have put the public’s perception of ecolabelled wood to the test at home depot stores in the US. The researchers placed bins of plywood at two Home Depot stores. One bin held conventional plywood, while the other housed virtually identical but ecolabelled plywood. Data was collected by simply tracking the amount sold of each type.

The findings of the experiment were:

• The ecolabelled product outsold the nonecolabelled product, 2 to 1, so long as the price of plywood in each bin was equal.
• When the ecolabelled plywood was priced at a 2 percent premium, the non-ecolabelled product outsold the ecolabelled by 1.7 to 1.
• 37 percent of the sales were to consumers who paid a 2 percent price premium.

Source: Oregon State University