As organizations increasingly target consumers who are concerned about the environment, the nature of their advertising becomes more of an issue. While much has been written about the problems associated with environmental advertising, this phenomenon has seldom been addressed systematically. This paper is intended to ascertain the extent to which environmental ads contain misleading and deceptive claims and to pose public policy recommendations concerning environmental advertising.
Concern about the environment has grown in recent decades, particularly in industrialized countries. This study examines whether environmental advertising claims differ across four countries: the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and Canada. Results suggest that the United States' ad claims are less concrete, as compared to those from the other countries.
The authors conducted a survey to identify conservation activity among the general populace of a midsize Southwestern community to increase our understanding of those who do and do not engage in a broad section of environmentally friendly activities. Numerous self-reported behaviors were gauged and combined to form a composite measure representing the conserving consumer. They then explored both demographic and psychosocial variables as predictors of this self-reported composite scale of conservation. The results and their implications are discussed for researchers and public policy officials.
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