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The latest survey “Europeans’ attitudes towards the issue of sustainable consumption and production” has revealed a wide support among Europeans for a mandatory ecolabelling scheme, while attitudes regarding “code of conduct” for retailers were more diverse with citizens of some countries supporting binding legislation and others supporting voluntary or no measures at all.

At the end of July 2009 the results of the Eurobarometer survey “Europeans’ attitudes towards the issue of sustainable consumption and production” were published. The survey examined issues such as the environmental impact and energy efficiency as deciding factors when buying products, the importance of ecolabelling in purchasing decisions, citizens’ awareness of the EU Ecolabel and its Flower logo and citizens’ support for a voluntary environmental “code of conduct” for retailers.

Energy-efficiency top criteria when buying products

A large majority of respondents in all countries in this study said they often, or always, take energy efficiency into consideration when buying products that use electricity or fuel – ranging from 59% in Cyprus to 85% in Germany. Only slightly more than a fifth of EU citizens said they almost never or only rarely take energy efficiency into account when buying products that use fuel or electricity (9% “almost never” and 13% “rarely”).

The impact of energy efficiency on purchasing decisions is larger for respondents who are generally more aware of the environmental impact of the products they buy or use. The attention paid to energy efficiency also increased with age, educational level and the occupational status of respondents.

Mandatory Ecolabelling gets wide support

Support for introducing a mandatory label indicating a product’s carbon footprint ranged from 47% in the Czech Republic – the only country where less than half of respondents were in favour of such labelling – to 9 in 10 respondents in Croatia and Greece.

With regards to the EU Ecolabel, the voluntary scheme established in 1992 to encourage businesses to market products including heat pumps and services that are kinder to the environment, almost 4 in 10 EU citizens in the survey had seen or heard about it. However, only roughly a fifth (19%) said they have also bought products bearing the label. Awareness of the EU Ecolabel was the highest in Lithuania, Denmark and Estonia (between 49% and 51%) and the lowest in the UK, Italy and Sweden (between 26% and 31%).

Voluntary environmental “code of conduct” for retailers versus binding legislation

Four out of 10 EU citizens agreed that it is a good idea to develop a voluntary environmental “code of conduct” for EU retailers. A similar proportion, nevertheless, thought that binding legislations would be more effective. Only a minority of respondents in all EU Member States – and Croatia – thought that a voluntary environmental “code of conduct” is not needed as retailers already do a lot for the environment (ranging from 3% in Bulgaria to 17% in Finland).