No, not everyone cares!

It may at first appear that everyone is starting to wake up and smell the polluted roses...... But not everyone gives a hoot!

As Trendwatching points out, its often enough that hundreds and hundreds of millions of consumers, from the poor to the somewhat rich to the truly rich, don’t really care that much about the environment. Either because they don’t have the luxury of fretting over carbon emissions while trying to survive, or because they are too addicted to living large, from SUVs to McMansions to jetsetting around the globe. Take cars: the only thing that seems to (somewhat) influence the prosperous eco-unwilling is high fuel prices. But even then:

• In 2007, US sales of small SUVs totaled 301,625 year-to-date through November, an increase of 22.7% vs the year-ago period, according to AutoData.
• BMW saw its 2007 profits up by 9%, in part because of higher sales of its popular X5 SUV.
• In 2007, 341,798 SUVs were sold in China, up 49.1 percent compared to the 229,182 SUVs sold in 2006. And in the first two months of 2008, sales of sport utility vehicles in China were up 38 percent, while sales of luxury cars climbed 30 percent compared with the corresponding period a year ago.
• In Australia, sales of new SUVs jumped 4.6% in October 2007 compared to September 2007.

Last but not least, many consumers are deeply skeptical about large corporations claiming to go green, as very few companies are seen as honest to begin with. This is what is known as 'greenwashing' and I'll be covering this area in future blogs so keep an eye out!

However, as stated before, a large enough eco-conscious audience now exists to make it worthwhile for brands to join the ECO-ICONIC fray. Just seek out the eco-minded middle classes around the world and you will be off to a good start. For the next 12 months, at least!