Does Global Warming Matter?

Green building is up; we all know that. But when it comes to marketing your green services – be it recycling, energy retrofits, building efficiency, high performance architecture, healthy interior design, or sustainable products – what are American consumers really looking for in a unique selling proposition?

According to a recent Gallup survey, the answer is most assuredly not “to positively impact global warming.”

Well, that’s not completely true – roughly one third of Americans did express concern about “climate change.” However, among eight environmental issues, it fell dead last on the priority list for a majority of the U.S. market.

So, while many of us in the industry may like to think that the reduction of global warming is a significant sticking point for our goods or services, the reality is that it’s not.

By comparison, “pollution of drinking water” makes 60% of Americans very worried. Similarly, 53% have a high level of concern for “contamination of soil and water by toxic waste” and “pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs.” Indeed, 46% expressed such worry over “air pollution.” Even the loss of tropical rain forests and the extinction of plant and animal species quantitatively trumped concerns of global warming.

And perhaps it's no surprise that global warming is not high on most people's lists... Sustainability itself is a ridiculously complex concept for most people, not just in the U.S... Actually, the best explanation of what sustainability is (and why we should care about it) that I've seen comes from a Canadian illustrator named Alex on YouTube:

But if most people in the U.S. don't get global warming, let alone care about it, what does this mean to companies in the green building space? It means your marketing efforts need to focus on primary, personal concerns of consumers.

In other words, your marketing material should first relate to human health (eg. not being poisoned or polluted) and then subtly reminding them of the side benefit of positively affecting global warming, or climate change.

Of course, all of this comes in parallel with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report which, if you’ve not already read it, basically outlines a nearly-apocalyptic future should we fail to act aggressively toward global warming. Then there's that massive hole in the Earth's atmosphere that was just discovered. So, if you’re as gung-ho on educating about global warming as you should be, just keep in mind that it’s easier to do if you have an audience in the first place.

If all else fails, learn to draw and head straight to YouTube.