‘Green fatigue’ signals doubt in ‘natural’ products

An estimated 328 products introduced in 2007 were labeled ‘green.’

mcclatchy newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In so many ways, Mark and Laura Hambrecht are exactly the kind of couple that “eco-friendly” marketers long to lure.

They’re young.

They’re smart.

And like so many in their 20-something generation, they’re “green.”

Mark, 25, rides his bike instead of driving to his job in the tech shop of Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Laura, 24, turns off her unused lights, recycles and cleans with soap and water rather than detergent. The couple has one car to conserve gas.

“We try,” Laura said.

Yet recently, a few days before Earth Day, the Kansas City couple stood at the center of a midtown market surrounded by scads of new environmentally friendly products, from Lipton’s organic green tea to a “biodegradable degreaser” by Power X.

The Hambrechts were buying none of it.

“I don’t like to buy the products that are ‘green,”’ Mark Hambrecht said. “I pretty much think it’s a lot of hype. It’s still all coming from the same companies that poison the environment.”

Maybe it was bound to happen. Thirty-eight years after U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin kicked off the first Earth Day in the United States, the nation’s desire and effort to save Mother Earth has never been greater.

Yet among some people it has also created an unintended backlash, what some term “green fatigue.”

As companies respond to Earth’s crisis by sending a tsunami of “green” products into stores (an estimated 328 new products in 2007 alone), a growing segment of the public finds itself looking at the trend with jaundiced eyes.

“I want to believe it, but when you see brands like Clorox going green, it’s hard to believe,” said Lori Felder, 24.

Felder also said that in the face of such “end of days” problems — from global warming to species extinction to cataclysmic messages about food, fuel and water — it’s easy to question whether her decision to recycle, save paper, buy organic food and not use bottled water really makes any difference.

“I’d like to think my little efforts help,” she said. “It can’t hurt things.”

But sometimes, when she finds herself standing in the market deciding whether to buy locally grown vegetables sprayed with pesticides or organic lettuce packed in a plastic tub and shipped 1,500 miles, she wonders which decision is really better for the environment. “It’s overwhelming,” she said. “It’s easy to think that what I’m doing isn’t going to help at all.”

The sentiment is hardly new to Colleen Ryan, a research analyst and consulting ecologist for Mintel, a Chicago-based firm that follows consumer trends.

In February, Ryan wrote a report titled “Green Living” based on an Internet survey of 3,000 people. The report reflected feelings on everything from organic food and “green” cosmetics to construction materials and hybrid cars. Many results were environmentally encouraging.

Among them:

UFifty-six percent of respondents reported being more concerned about the environment today than they were five years ago.

U Although 18 percent of people said they agreed with the statement, “I am tired of hearing about all the problems with the environment,” 82 percent said they disagreed.

But one number also showed deep skepticism in the “green” market.

Sixty percent of people said they agreed with the statement, “I often wonder if a product is really ‘green’ or if the company is just saying that it is.”