"The Environment"

NI TGI data can give insights into how aware consumers are of environmental issues and how this can affect their purchasing behaviour.

• 40% of the Northern Irish population claim to know “a fair amount or a lot” about climate change – compared to 53% of the adult GB population.

• In certain areas, Northern Irish consumers have become more inclined to “go green” with the proportion of adults in NI making an effort to cut down on water wastage rising from 25% to 28% since 2009. 

TGI’s Greenscape Cluster segmentation uses attitudes towards the environment, knowledge about green issues and environmental actions to create the following six distinctive cluster groups:

• Cluster A: Keen – 14% of the total NI population, they are strongly committed to the environmental cause in both thought and deed. They are particularly likely to buy green, be intellectually engaged with environmental issues, recycle and avoid waste. 62% of this group are women [120]*, they are 20% more likely to buy something after receiving direct mail and 81% take positive steps to reduce the energy they use [171]. 

• Cluster B: Carefree – 21% of the population, they are not engaged with environmental issues and are more focussed on their own lives. Also unlikely to recycle compared to the average adult or to minimise waste, but slightly more likely to buy green. 52% are aged 15-34, 67% are in social grade C2,D or E and 37% have visited Facebook in the last 4 weeks [123].

• Cluster C: Pic’n’mix – 20% of the population, they have some engagement with the environment but only where it suits them. For example, they are far more likely to consume relatively large amounts of energy through travel. 40% of this group have children in the household and they are 20% more likely to spend 9+ hours travelling by car per week. 55% of this group always recycle but they are more than twice as likely to leave the TV on standby [258] and keep the tap running while brushing their teeth [226].

• Cluster D: Sceptic – 9% of the population, they are educated individuals and well informed of environmental challenges. However, they tend not to identify personally with the need to be environmentally friendly and are less likely to buy green. 70% of this group are men [144], they are 69% more likely to be in social grade AB and they are 77% more likely to read the financial pages of their newspaper. Moreover, 29% of this group believe that the effects of climate change are too far in the future to really worry them.

• Cluster E: Incidental – 21% of the population, they are unlikely to be environmentally friendly through choice as they have little engagement with the cause. However, the way they live their lives means in some ways they are inadvertently environmentally friendly (e.g. not wasting energy). 23% of this group are retired [116], 38% read a newspaper everyday [109] and 22% intend to buy a second hand car in the next five years. They are also 28% more likely to make an effort to cut down on their gas or electricity consumption.

• Cluster F: Resigned – 15% of the population, they have very little engagement with environmental issues and are not very well informed about them. Nevertheless, they are particularly likely to buy green and to recycle, possibly because other people do. 40% of this group are 65+ [225], 44% are in social grade DE [129], they are 24% more likely to prefer local radio and they are 49% more likely to be heavy TV viewers with 21% being heavy UTV viewers. They are also 81% more likely to never have heard of CO2. 

Base: All adults 15+
Source: NI TGI 2010

*Number in brackets indicates index figures, ie [120] – 20% more likely to agree.