Food Compliance
Intelligence & Solutions
Home / News / Details

A look into Chinese Consumers and Sustainable products

Shutterstock
-70% of Chinese consumers are aware of “sustainability” with more than 70% willing to pay higher prices for sustainable products. -Chinese consumers accept a higher premium of 20-30% on food, daily necessities, home building materials and interior. - Consumers are having problems differentiating between sustainable products and regular products.

In 2019, the SynTao China Sustainable Development Case Center located in Beijing released their “China Sustainability Consumption Report 2019[1] in which they surveyed Chinese consumers’ perception on sustainable consumption, label recognition and attitude towards premium sustainable products.

ChemLinked will be taking a look at this research on the awareness of Chinese consumers on sustainability and what it might mean for enterprises who are interested in the Chinese green market. The survey had a total of 10,508 valid questionnaires whose participants broke down as follows:01a.jpg

The age breakdown of participants of survey.

The gender breakdown of participants was 66.15% male and 33.85% female. They noted that the survey was promoted and filled out online by the respondent which might give a clue that men might be more interested sustainability-related surveys then women.

According to the questionnaire on the topic of vocabulary associated with “sustainable consumption” Chinese consumers most closely associate it with: Waste sorting, recycling, environmental protection, low carbon-dioxide and share economy. Additionally, many Chinese consumers are familiar with “sustainability” in a broader sense of clothing, food, housing and transportation.

On the topic of whether their consumption behavior would impact the environment positively, the results were as follow:

03.jpegFurthermore, the survey unveils that Chinese consumers frequently practice several practices of sustainable consumption in their daily lives. In terms of purchasing and disposal of clothes, 83% of respondents will choose environmentally-friendly fabrics when they buy clothes with 90% of respondents saying they would buy/rent clothing through second-hand stores. For dining, 84.85% of respondents said they would not use disposable tableware when eating if possible and 95.34% of respondents said they would ride bicycles when possible.

Additionally, Chinese consumers are becoming more aware of Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) and the proportion of consumers buying sustainable products because “products are well-known for their CSR commitments by manufacturers” has increase from 21.53% in 2017, to 43.2% in 2018 to 52.35% in 2019.

So while Chinese consumers seem to be aware of consumption and its connection with the environment, are they willing to spend money on it?

Willingness to buy Sustainable Products

The survey also checks whether higher prices impact the desire of consumers to buy sustainable products which has significantly decreased. In a survey done in 2018, 77% of consumers stated that they did not engage in sustainable consumption because they were affected by “prices higher than similar products”. However, in 2019 only 42.95% of consumers believed that prices would hinder or stop them from buying sustainable products.

The exception to this can be found with consumers in the apparel category with 70% of consumers expressing their willingness to pay higher prices for sustainable products. The proportion of consumers who do not care about the price is ranked the highest for apparel category.

Attitude towards Premium Sustainable Products

The acceptance of premium prices for sustainable products has been increasing according to survey results with 70% of respondents willing to pay higher prices for sustainable products.

Amongst these premium sustainable products, consumers are more inclined to accept lower premiums for clothing, electronic appliances, automobiles and accessories; for food, daily necessities, home building materials and interior products, consumers are more inclined to accept higher premiums.

The willingness levels of paying what price for various categories are listed as below:

What‘s stopping Consumers for purchasing and what about the labels?

According to the aforementioned data, there is a willingess of Chinese consumers to buy sustainable products, even at a premium price. So, what is stopping them?

There are several reasons for why many consumers still do not commit to sustainable products despite being aware of them. The primary reasons are as follows:

·         Difficulty of distinguishing sustainable products from regular products

·         Sales staff cannot provide effective support and assistance.

·         Follow-up recycling is difficult

·         Sustainable products choices are limited.

·         Not finding a suitable purchase channel

The first reason requires additional explanation.
According to research done in China on clothing expenditure, product cues and how it influences consumers‘ choices in 2020, young Chinese consumers seem to be more concerned with social/ethical attributes (in the forms of certified ethical label, worker safety, no child labour, no animal skin use and fair wages) rather then environmental/symbolic ones (such as certified eco-label, garment life, air quality, less energy usage, less water usage etc)
[2].

Additionally, Chinese consumers might be aware of „sustainability“ but awareness of sustainable labels still needs to improve as evident by the table below. 

The table shows consumers awareness of Chinese green labels.

Green Labels in China.jpegWhile around half of the respondants were aware of China Energy Efficiency Label and Green Food Certification, there were a surprisingly low percentage who were aware of the Plastic Product Recycling Mark.

While there are some hurdles when it comes to sustainable products (awareness of labels, lack of suitable purchase channels etc.) it is clear that Chinese consumers are increasingly looking towards greener products to reduce their negative impact on the environment and are willing to put the money where their mouths are.
This is likely to become a good market in the near future as the Chinese government develops the market further and Chinese consumers start seeing more variety in the sustainable products as the desire to buy sustainable products is clearly there.

For additional information regarding sustainability, please have a look at these free webinars Chemlinked has:
Understanding Korean Regulation for Recycling Packaging Materials by Mike Sohn (General Manager of Reach24H Korea) – Note, it will launch on 3rd Nov 2020.
Regulatory Compliance of Degradable Plastics for Food Contact Use in China, EU and USA.


For any other questions in regards to sustainability in China, please contact contact@chemlinked.com

Tags :
We provide full-scale global food market entry services (including product registration, ingredient review, regulatory consultation, customized training, market research, branding strategy). Please contact us to discuss how we can help you by food@chemlinked.com
Copyright: unless otherwise stated all contents of this website are ©2024 - REACH24H Consulting Group - All Rights Reserved - For permission to use any content on this site, please contact cleditor@chemlinked.com