Dissertation Chapter 6

In this chapter, the findings of this study are compared with others that had similar objectives to show how this study has contributed new information to this field of research. Comparisons will be made of findings, research and experimental methods, and designs that support overall conclusions of these studies.

Cornell / Ulster County, NY

Starting about the same time as this research study, Cornell University Waste Management Institute, funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, conducted a Waste Reduction through Consumer Education research project to determine how environmental educational strategies influence purchasing behavior in the supermarket.[1] Five different consumer education strategies were developed: county-wide education, in-store shopper education, direct mailings, educational shoppers’ tours of supermarkets, and financial incentives (i.e., coupons). Each of these campaigns addressed environmental and energy conservation issues, as well as other consumer concerns such as cost and safety. Fourteen product categories were identified to shoppers as having more waste generating and less waste generating product choices (similar to the approach taken here to identify target products for diaries and storewide purchases). The educational messages were organized around the following waste reduction principles: (1) Buy in large containers and less wasteful packaging, (2) concentrates generate less packaging per use than dilute versions, and (3) durables reduce waste generation vis a vis disposable goods.

Three groups of shoppers (randomly assigned) received different educational approaches (some more, some less) and a fourth group was the control. All groups were exposed to the county-wide education and the in-store education. The three experimental groups received targeted treatments (direct mail, shoppers’ tour, or coupons). Using supermarket scanner data and a type of Club Card system, the research tracked the purchases of shoppers in the different education treatment groups for nine months so all the subjects' shopping behaviors at the experimental store could be accurately evaluated. No shopper surveys were used. Statistical tests were applied to the purchase data to assess patterns of change between the groups by treatment period.

As compared with this study, which had roughly one-fourth the funding level, the Cornell project was able to maintain its educational effort longer (about four times as long) and provide additional educational interventions (i.e. direct mailings and financial incentives) that were too costly for this study. In addition, Cornell was able to provide more types of educational interventions as compared with this study since the active partners in the project included Ulster County (which undertook the county-wide education), and Shop-Rite (which has demonstrated a large commitment to environmental shopping education, not only by cooperating in this effort with Cornell/Ulster County, but also by designing and implementing environmental shopping campaigns of its own in its stores, and by making conference presentations and writing reports on its environmental shopping campaigns).

Despite positive expectations, Cornell stated that “while educational treatments for the study were carefully designed and conscientiously executed… there may not have been a sufficient number of message reinforcements to push shoppers to make real changes.” Analysis of Cornell’s purchase data revealed “virtually no meaningful statistical differences between treatment groups or changes in behavior over time.” (In essence the same findings as for this study.) In its study Cornell recognized that the supermarket is a challenging environment in which to impart waste reduction messages, competing with a blizzard of information, appeals, and advertisements. Under such conditions consumers may have difficulty even recalling environmental shopping messages in recently conducted and well-designed campaigns.[2] That a sizeable percentage of shoppers did remember some of the New York City’s educational materials is a credit to their design and placement in our test stores as close to the checkout as possible (where shoppers’ idle moments are more plentiful than elsewhere in the store).

The expectation had been that successive waves of waste reduction education would lead to growing reductions in the amount of waste associated with shoppers’ purchases. But at least one of the treatments was not administered as successfully as they may have hoped. The shoppers’ tour drew few participants (26) despite invitations to 200 and a $10 incentive. Some of the interventions, for example, the store tours, could probably have not been conducted in New York City supermarkets due to the lack of space. This assumption is supported by the fact that the NYC Department of Sanitation twice issued Requests for Proposals, in the early 1990’s attempting to hire consultants to promote environmental shopping education in New York City supermarkets by means of environmental shopping tours, and failed to convince anyone to respond. Discussions with some of those who attended pre-bid conferences revealed that the idea of having store tours as a basis for environmental shopping education in New York City supermarkets was unworkable.

The coupon treatment was also problematic. Due to problems in coordination with the store management for the two supermarkets under study and the parent company, data on number of coupon users was unclear, but this cohort did receive a waste reduction message with the coupons. Despite the problems with these interventions, it is likely that Cornell's in-store educational interventions were presented to the shopping public in a more optimal way without disruption since the commitment of the Shop-Rite organization to environmental concerns is high. Store management could have displayed and maintained educational materials in the stores more effectively than was possible here.

Cornell’s findings suggested to them that broad-brush consumer education about waste reduction is not effective in changing purchasing behaviors in the short term, but it may help create awareness about environmental shopping issues. The study concluded that the answer to waste reduction might require action on the parts of manufacturers and retailers, government intervention, and better-informed consumers.

As reported in 1994 by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [3], another experimental environmental shopping campaign was undertaken in three IGA supermarkets. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of prompts and education on environmental shopping awareness and behavior. Over the period of a year, the experimental program examined the effects of an environmental product tagging program and an educational intervention on self-reported buying of environmentally friendly goods. Three different tags labeled products that (a) were recyclable in the community, (b) represented least waste packaging, or (c) were an alternative to more toxic chemicals. The prompts (shelf tags) were placed on the supermarket shelves underneath environmentally friendly products to remind the consumer which products were environmentally friendly. In addition to these prompts, an educational intervention was placed in stores to increase consumer awareness. This campaign consisted of explanatory brochures and a display that promoted and described the tagging program. The stores also advertised the program in the local newspaper, on store billboards, and on their paper sacks. This program was part of a county-wide waste reduction program called Model Community, and also included persuasive communication and education, specifically newspaper and television ads explaining precycling (source reduction), education in elementary schools, and more opportunities for recycling.

The experimental instruments were pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys, conducted by telephone and randomly sampled. Subjects were classified as shopping at an experimental store if they did at least 10% of their shopping at that store. Control subjects did less than 10% of their shopping at an experimental store. Their pre-intervention and post-intervention sample sizes, 109 and 132 respectively, were considerably less than that for this study, and the subjects were not followed over time as was the case for this study and the Cornell study. The surveys were shorter than for this study (12 questions in the pre-intervention and the same questions plus seven more for the post-intervention), but did cover some of the same ground. Both asked the extent to which the respondent saw and remembered the environmental interventions, and questions about the extent of recycling and environmental purchasing. This campaign was expected to stimulate self-reported environmentally conscious shopping behaviors above the level generated by the tagging program alone and above the levels reported by shoppers who did not shop at the experimental stores.

Contrary to their expectations, there was no significant interaction effect pre-intervention vs. post-intervention survey results (after nine months of intervention), nor was there one between the groups examined (experimental vs. control group), implying that the experimental educational intervention did not change behavior. One explanation might be that none of the subjects of their survey recalled having read a brochure, but a total of 418 brochures were taken. Also, the Model Community tagging program received more news and popular press coverage in 1990 than in 1991. The main positive effect of shopping at the tagged stores was a significant positive effect on purchasing less toxic products, knowledge about the Model Community, and awareness of the environmental tagging program.

Like the Cornell study, the Illinois experimental period was much longer (over five times what was possible for this study), and as a result, seasonal effects on the results were reduced. Also, some of the same environmental shopping themes were emphasized (recyclability, reduced packaging), and some of the same prompts were used inside the stores (brochures). Unlike this study, but similar to Cornell, the Illinois experiment was larger in scope as a result of the cooperation of both the local government in spreading the educational interventions beyond the stores, and the stores themselves in being able to establish the tagging program (like the shopping tours and incentives in the case of the Cornell study).

The three studies differed in how they measured behavioral change. Two studies (Cornell, New York City) tracked shoppers pre- / post-intervention vs. matching separate pools of subjects (Illinois), and two (Illinois, New York City) used self-reported information from surveys vs. actual shopper purchases to measure change in behavior (Cornell). Essentially the same hypotheses were tested in all three studies (i.e., do self-reported environmental shopping behaviors increase as a result of environmental shopping educational interventions), and similar results are reported by all three studies (i.e., that there was no significant effect on shopping behaviors resulting from the educational interventions). In the Illinois study, the results were apparently negative in some cases. The authors tried to explain the result by suggesting a ceiling effect (the initial results being so high, the later results couldn't go higher). But it could also have been possible that respondents in that study were overly optimistic in the baseline survey, never really having thought about their attitudes and behaviors before, and then after having thought about it, were more realistic. Another explanation the authors offered for the poor results pre- vs. post-intervention was that information the shoppers gathered from sources other than the tagging program might have been the most important in guiding the their perceptions and priorities. This conclusion matches that from this study (that a significant proportion of the influence on shoppers’ attitudes and behaviors is unrelated to their level of environmental knowledge).

Minnesota

The Minnesota Office of Waste Management conducted two short-term environmental shopping studies [4] in each of two supermarkets in Eagan and Willmar, MN, for one week in April, 1992. The educational materials consisted of posters, shelf cards, and brochures. All three devices emphasized both the environmental and economic messages associated with environmental shopping. The actual cost savings and waste reduction achieved by choosing a specific product in one packaging alternative vs. another were illustrated. According to OWM, a lot of effort was necessary during the pilots to make sure customers received the brochures. With the help of OWM staff and local volunteers, someone was stationed at the entrance to the store from 10 am to about 7 pm on weekdays, and later on weekends. With a little assertiveness, most customers were willing to accept a brochure, and in one week 7500 brochures were distributed at each of two stores. Minnesota considered the brochure to be the most effective educational tool, since shoppers left very few of them behind in carts. It was partially on this basis that three brochures were the centerpiece for the Gristede’s campaigns.

To measure the campaign’s impact, the intention was to use scanner data to see if there was a change in purchase of 15 products, but the stores didn't have staff time to do that. Minnesota shoppers completed 100 surveys before, during, and after the campaign per store (i.e., 300/store, 600 for whole campaign). The exit survey included the question: “Check the top two sources you think are most effective at educating you on environmentally smart shopping.” TV was selected by 75% of the consumers and newspaper was selected by about 50%, education at the store was chosen by about 40% of the customers. Minnesota found that 50% of Eagan shoppers and 59% of Willmar shoppers were aware of the campaign and 31% of Eagan shoppers and 36% of Willmar shoppers could recall some of the message without prompting after the week-long program. These results provided this project with the idea that some questions should be directed towards finding out the extent to which the campaign materials were actually noticed. In Eagan the customers said they seldom brought bags to the store (1.57 on a scale of 1 to 5), and this did not vary during the week. The Willmar shoppers had a slightly higher mean (1.67). (The range of values for this question as answered by east and west side shoppers was 1.9 to 2.6.) The fact that there was almost no variation in the answers to this or any of the behavior questions during the weeklong pilot study indicates that a week was not a long enough period to change shoppers' behaviors.

Boulder

In September, 1990 the City of Boulder launched a pilot three-month project [5] in ten stores, for the purpose of increasing consumer awareness about ways to minimize waste when shopping and reducing the quantity of waste material actually purchased. The project was designed to develop a broad-based, highly visible source reduction campaign, identify those program features that are most effective and could be most easily duplicated in other communities, and to serve as a model program for the Rocky Mountain EPA Region.

The educational campaign included on-shelf labeling, using a distinctive pink color for all labels, in-store signs, employee buttons, weekly precycle information booths offering precycle brochures, and featuring a low-waste “product of the week”, letter-writing campaigns, product tallies, and consumer surveys. The project developed a logo: “Precycle: Reach for a Change” to unify the various features of the campaign, and store employees were asked to wear buttons with this logo. Approximately 2,000 shoppers talked with a campaign volunteer. The campaign also benefited from local media coverage, including stories in the local newspaper, the university newspaper, the TV station, and an interview on the radio station.

To measure the effectiveness of the campaign, consumer surveys and tallies of target products were conducted. The surveys were distributed via a “Boxx”, a specially designed portable computer, placed under a sign at the front of the supermarket, encouraging shoppers to answer a sixty-second questionnaire. It was recognized that this would not produce a truly random sample, but it offered a direct and relatively inexpensive way to reach people at the supermarket. One set of surveys was run in the two weeks before the program kickoff and another at the end of the program. Each survey had 16 questions, to measure demographics, consumers' awareness of packaging waste issues before and after the precycle campaign, and self-reported behaviors.

The product tallies were designed to include a list for each store of about 10 sets of matched products -- high-waste and low-waste. They included such things as four-ounce yogurt containers vs. 8, 16, and 32 oz containers; ketchup in plastic vs glass containers; and aseptic juice packs vs. large glass bottles of juice. Products were matched as closely as possible, using the same brand, close proximity to each other, and the same purpose/usage where possible. Product tallies were planned to begin 13 weeks prior to the start of the campaign, and were to continue during the 13 weeks of the campaign. The baseline surveys were answered by 333 shoppers and the post-campaign surveys were answered by 653. After the campaign, 84% of survey respondents said they were familiar with the environmental shopping program and 74% said it had helped them reduce packaging waste. To test these assertions, multiple-choice questions asked specifics about what precycling involved. Fifty-four percent of all the respondents said they were familiar with the program and were able to answer the multiple-choice questions correctly. To double-check the results of the computer surveys’ knowledge questions, an exit poll was conducted of 100 shoppers at each participating store during the last week of the program. Shoppers were asked only 2 questions: “Have you heard about the precycle program?” and “What stands out in your mind about it?” Half the respondents said they had heard of the program, and a third were able to name a key element of precycling. This was viewed to fit with the computer survey results, since the latter posed multiple choice questions and permitted guessing.

In addition to demographic and knowledge questions, the surveys also included a few questions in their baseline and follow-up questionnaires to measure the impact of the campaign on self-reported shopper behavior. These questions probed the frequency with which shoppers brought bags back to the store, purchased products in bulk, purchased products in single-serving packages, and exhibited a willingness to pay more for a product for environmental reasons. After the campaign all of these behavior questions showed a negligible (1-2%) change from the pre-program to post-program surveys, which was at odds with the 74% response that the campaign helped the shoppers reduce packaging waste. But this negligible difference in self-reported change in shopping behavior did agree with the findings of this study. And, as with this study, there was a disconnect between the shoppers’ environmental knowledge and their shopping behaviors.

It was initially recognized that the storewide data collections could be affected by extraneous influences (e.g., sale promotions, coupons, changes in shelf locations, and time of year), and a number of the products under study were affected by these kinds of changes the simple tallying technique could not resolve. Further, no tallies were kept in certain stores, because of a lack of computerized sales data, or because of errors in recording data by store employees. Tallies of paper and plastic bag use were sought, but none of the stores provided it. Such accounts are similar to the experiences in this study. In three large chain stores that did provide purchase data (one of which was a control store outside of Boulder), sales for both the high-waste and low-waste products rose in many cases. For the smaller experimental store, there also appeared to be no discernable trend in purchases. These findings were consistent with the results of the surveys’ behavior questions. One exception to this was sale of cloth shopping bags. Sales rose 40% in the non-participating store, but nearly 700% in the participating stores, which indicated that one of the campaign messages was heeded to some extent. However, there was little change in shoppers’ actually bringing their own bags to the store after the campaign vs. before, as reported in their surveys.

Store ownership and involvement of the managers appeared to play an important role. In two stores information booth materials mysteriously disappeared and had to be replaced, and in some stores employees stopped wearing their buttons, but these problems were never disclosed to the project by the store managers. Store ownership and involvement also had an impact on the shoppers’ awareness of the campaign. Of five large chain stores in the program, four were clustered around 41% and one was at 47%. The latter had a particularly supportive manager and well-maintained educational materials. One of the smaller stores, that had a low campaign recognition level, had low participation by the store management. The highest campaign recognition level, 75%, was recorded at the store where the program kickoff was held. It is speculated that having this event at their store gave the employees a strong sense of program ownership. For this and reasons given above, the Boulder study recommended future studies conduct campaigns in only one cooperative store chain (this recommendation was heeded by this study).

Suffolk County, NY [6]

To investigate consumer behavior in the selection of environmentally friendly packaging, Suffolk County, in tandem with Cornell Cooperative Extension, interviewed 221 randomly selected individuals in front of six supermarkets in Suffolk County, NY using a 27-item questionnaire during the summer of 1991. At the end of the interview, respondents were given a recruitment brochure offering the opportunity to become an environmental shopper. Other methods to recruit the 50-family sample included an article in local papers, a notice in LILCO bulletin, and leaders of 4-H were contacted. Fifty families were recruited and given two hours of training on how to evaluate and select packaging that is friendlier to the environment. Volunteers kept diaries of purchases, documented by register tapes, over an eight-week period, and all were given environmental shopper bags with the project’s logo, and were encouraged to use the bag. Focus groups were held with the participants, four weeks into the study. These shoppers completed a 40-item self-administered questionnaire. Those filling out diaries were called “environmental shoppers” and those interviewed outside the stores (controls) were “general shoppers”.

Since, as part of their indoctrination, the environmental shoppers were provided a shopping bag with the project logo, and encouraged to use it, it is not surprising that 66% of the Suffolk’s environmental shoppers reported that they sometimes or usually brought their own grocery bag to the store. By comparison, 38% of east side Gristede’s shoppers who saw the bags or bag signs said they brought bags to the store sometimes, often or always, and 26% of west side shoppers receiving the same treatment did likewise. That Gristede’s shoppers had to spend $2.50 to $4 to buy an environmental shopper bag, meant that a small percentage of the intervention shoppers would own one. This, in addition to the absence of personalized encouragement explains why more of Suffolk’s environmental shoppers would bring a bag to the store.

Ninety percent of Suffolk’s general shoppers never brought their own grocery bags to the store even though some of the stores offered a 2-cent incentive. By contrast, well over half of the baseline shoppers at the east and west side stores said they would probably or definitely bring a bag to the store if a two cent incentive were provided. Fifty-one percent of the baseline shoppers at both Gristede’s stores said they never actually brought a bag; this figure remained the same after the campaign for the west side shoppers, but went down to 34% for the post-intervention east side shoppers. A possible explanation for this is that Long Islanders go shopping by car, but Manhattanites do their shopping on foot on their way home from work, and might be more likely to have a bag or briefcase to carry their purchases home.

As expected, Suffolk’s environmental shoppers tended to recycle a higher percentage in 10 item categories than general shoppers. The environmental shoppers recycled ferrous and aluminum cans 95% of the time vs. the general shoppers (72% for ferrous cans, 94% for aluminum cans). Glass was recycled by environmental shoppers 93% of the time and 83% by the controls. These figures agree with the recycling behaviors reported by shoppers in this study, where slightly over 80% of east side controls and slightly over 90% of west side controls said they recycled cans and bottles. However, somewhat fewer said they recycled as much after the intervention; and the increased educational interventions seemed to reduce the recycling rate slightly. Again, the amount of personalized education provided by the Suffolk campaign may well explain why their intervention recipients’ recycling behavior increased more.

Michigan

The University of Michigan SORED study [7] was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of using environmental and economic arguments as motivation for shoppers’ source reduction behaviors in supermarkets, to evaluate the role of procedural knowledge, motivation, attitudes, and barriers on shopping behavior, and to develop a procedure for quantifying source reduction behavior. Three hypotheses were tested: (1) education on the environmental benefits of source reduction, combined with specific instructions on how to source reduce, would increase source reduction behavior, (2) education on the economic benefits of source reduction, combined with specific instructions on how to source reduce, would increase source reduction behavior, and (3) education combining the first two approaches would increase source reduction behavior more than either approach alone. To test the hypotheses, an experiment was conducted utilizing a two-variable factorial design. The two variables were “environmental reasons to source reduce” and “economic reasons to source reduce”. Participants in the research were volunteers, and were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups (control, receiving environmental reasons to source reduce, receiving economic reasons to source reduce, and receiving both reasons to source reduce). In order to measure the impact of the educational campaign, data were gathered in two forms: direct shopping data from supermarket receipts, and survey data from three separate surveys.

The study took place at a Chelsea, Michigan supermarket over a period of 13 weeks from September through December, 1990. At the beginning of the study period a screening survey instrument was administered to shoppers on a voluntary basis as they entered or exited the store. The survey contained fifteen questions designed to measure shoppers’ attitudes, knowledge, and behavior and to provide demographic information and took less than 5 minutes for shoppers to complete. On September 22 and 23, 1990, a total of 688 surveys were collected, and from this, 178 individuals volunteered to participate in the study. Subsequent analyses of the volunteers vs. the non-volunteers showed no significant differences between them with respect to attitudes, knowledge, behavior and demographic data, with one exception (gender). The study participants were 82% female as compared with 64% of the non-participants. The participants were allocated to the groups as follows: control (56), economic (40), environmental (41), and both (41).

All participants agreed to save their supermarket receipts for the duration of the study. After a 3-week baseline period, the selected participants were asked to complete a detailed baseline survey. The educational intervention began with three treatment groups receiving similar looking pamphlets. Each pamphlet contained an identical definition of source reduction, and “how to” information on carrying out simple source reduction activities through shopping or at home. “Recipe” sheets providing non-toxic alternatives for the homeowner were sent to all three treatment groups along with a letter encouraging them to read the materials and consider adopting the proposed changes in behavior. The pamphlet for the environmental group justified source reduction as an activity to help protect the environment, while the economic group pamphlet justified source reduction as a way to save money. The combined group received both justifications. The controls received nothing. Following this intervention, data collection continued for 10 weeks. Volunteers in all categories were asked to collect their grocery receipts for the period of the study, and were provided stamped, self-addressed envelopes in which to send the receipts to the researchers. All groups except the control group received source reduction tips on the postcards during the 10-week “treatment” period and all were promised a canvas tote bag if they completed the study. At the end of the study period, a follow-up survey was administered to measure changes in source reduction behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes attributable to the intervention, as well as other constructs such as motivation, tendency to act and barriers. This data was also collected to corroborate the data collected from the receipts. This survey was mailed to all participants. One hundred fifteen surveys were returned (approximately 65% of the 175 mailed). The surveys returned were split between the treatment groups as follows: control (33), economic (23), environmental (31), and both (26).

There were 25 behavior change questions and these were aggregated into one “Overall Behavior Change” variable. The Likert scale (1 to 5) was used to evaluate the results, with 1 = no change and 5 = great change. The questions were all worded as follows: How much change has occurred in your shopping and household habits due to your participation in the study? Then each of 25 specific behaviors (e.g., buy more durables, buy in bulk, use fewer paper towels) were listed. The Overall Behavior Change grand mean was 2.62, standard deviation of 1.11. The four groups’ means were: control (2.18), economic (2.54), environmental (2.58), and both (3.34). A “Shopping Trash Reduction” variable, consisting of six of the questions, showed the following results: grand mean (2.66), standard deviation (1.20), control (2.24), economic (2.71), environmental (2.57) and both (3.30). All the effects were significant at p = .05 or less. Other results, just for the effect of the pamphlet and for the postcard prompts on behavior, showed similar results.

The major finding of this study was that participants did show statistically significant changes in their behavior when given either economic or environmental reasons to source reduce, and that these treatments yielded roughly the same results. More important, a combination of both of these strategies yielded greater behavior change than a single strategy alone for every behavior change variable and factor studied. Since it was determined that interactive effects were minimal, an additive model of environmental plus economic contributions are said to explain this result. The results of the study also suggested that the study participants were more likely to practice home-based source reduction (e.g., reusing aluminum foil and using fewer paper towels), rather than modifying their purchases at the supermarket to reduce packaging consumption.

The results from the Michigan study are not as directly comparable with this study as some of the other studies reviewed, because the behavior change questions allowed the respondents to assess at one point in time how much their behaviors changed. By comparison, the Gristede’s customers were asked at two separate points in time how often they practiced a certain behavior. As they were not likely to remember how they answered the questions several months before, this method of questioning could have resulted in more objective answers (and a lower estimate of behavioral change), by Gristede’s shoppers.

Comparison can be made of the answers to very similar questions, to indicate the degree to which there might be differences in motivations of Michigan and New York City shoppers. For example, both sets of follow-up surveys asked how important (or convincing) shoppers found conserving landfill space and natural resources as reasons to recycle (or source reduce). The means, using the same five-point scale, were considerably less for the New York City shoppers as seen in the Table 31, below, supporting the finding that there are numerous outside influences on the Gristede’s shoppers’ environmental behaviors. The differences in these figures may also point to differences in the amounts of intervention provided the shoppers. The Michigan shoppers received both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational literature whereas the Gristede’s shoppers only received intrinsic motivation. Those (Michigan) who received the largest amounts of educational treatment, which taught them the impacts of their shopping behaviors on environmental problems, responded that this information was most important motivation for recycling (source reduction). The shoppers receiving the smallest educational intervention, at the east-side store, seemed to have the least intrinsic motivations.

Table 31 Intrinsic Motivations for Recycling / Source Reduction

San Francisco

Shop Smart ’96 [8]

A large-scale waste reduction campaign in nine counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, called the Shop Smart: Save Resources and Prevent Waste campaign, was a public-private partnership conducted by the City of San Francisco, and co-sponsored by 103 Bay Area cities and counties and 225 supermarkets, the California Integrated Waste Management Board, and other corporate and government sponsors. Shop Smart involved a massive in-store and media campaign, and total staffing for the campaign included more than 500 people, at least half of whom were volunteers. Aside from staff time, which in this New York City campaign dwarfed other costs, total cost of the campaign exceeded $350,000. The campaign lasted three and a half weeks, from January 7 through January 31, 1996.

The purpose of the project was to bring shoppers messages about the importance of waste prevention and buying products made with recycled content. The campaign combined in-store materials with a major media campaign to promote waste prevention and buying products made from recycled materials. In particular, the campaign focused on seven waste prevention and buy recycled messages. The seven messages were:

· Close the Recycling Loop: Choose recycled packaging: glass, aluminum and steel

· Close the Recycling Loop: Look for “Made with Recycled Content” on products and packaging

City and county staff and volunteers installed either one or two display units, 150 - 200 shelf tags, and one or two posters in each participating supermarket. Each display unit included a poster with the seven messages, five entry pads for entering the grocery certificate drawing, six holders for literature (one holder for the Shop Smart waste prevention brochure, one for the Department of Conservation’s Buy Recycled brochure, one for either the California Integrated Waste Management or a local composting brochure, and 3 additional for local brochures). The Shop Smart waste prevention brochure was also translated into Spanish and Chinese and distributed in a number of the participating supermarkets. In addition to the above listed materials, Safeway, Inc. also provided printed messages on eight million paper shopping bags (the messages included the seven campaign themes), and printed messages on cash register coupons (Catalina coupons). Safeway, Inc. also included a Shop Smart message in their coupon book (mailed to more than 5 million homes) and in four-color newspaper ads. In order to attract additional attention to the campaign, $100 and $500 grocery certificates were given away in a random drawing at the end of the campaign. One $500 grocery certificate was awarded in each county (for a total of 9 certificates).

In addition to supermarket campaigns, Shop Smart’s display units were set up in several county buildings, one city sent literature out in water bills, another promoted the campaign in schools

The regional media strategy maximized the frequency of media coverage by combining purchased advertising, donated advertising, public service announcements, and local print and radio features to achieve high visibility for the regional campaign. The cooperative and regional characteristics of this campaign generated media interest, resulting in enhanced media coverage.

The paid media campaign included over 1,600 commercials on more than 60 radio stations, 780 television commercials on 4 broadcast television and 7 cable stations and ads in 50 newspapers. This was augmented by public service announcements on 4 broadcast television stations, 29 cable stations and 19 radio stations. Campaign ads were also translated into Chinese and Spanish for radio and print.

As a result of the interest that the campaign generated, it received in-depth coverage by the media throughout the region as a news story, including reports in more than 46 newspapers and 29 newsletters, in-depth interviews on 9 radio stations, and news coverage by 5 TV stations. More than 1,370 traffic report sponsorship radio spots (each featuring one of the seven campaign themes) were combined with 259 spots on four radio stations, including some live reports from a Safeway Store in San Jose during the campaign and giving away an additional four grocery certificates ($101 each). The television campaign included buying 688 spots on 4 network and 13 cable TV. Individual jurisdictions also supplemented the regional effort through radio ads, newspaper ads and direct mail.

In addition to the media blitz, Pacific Bell Directory supplied, free of charge, the use of a regional telephone recycling 800 hotline number. This number could be programmed individually by each city or county, and most cities and counties did tailor their messages to their county, including a Shop Smart message and local information with a referral to a local hotline telephone number. The hotline message first gave the economic message: “You can also enter a drawing to win one hundred dollar and five hundred dollar grocery gift certificates.” Then it provided five of the environmental messages of the campaign.

Both storewide purchasing trends and surveys were employed to measure the impact of the educational devices used in these supermarket campaigns. A market research firm interviewed shoppers at stores in each of the nine counties and used sales data from Safeway, Inc. to measure product sales. The campaign had a significant impact, not only in educating shoppers, but also in influencing buying habits. Sales analysis of product sales at Safeway Stores showed sales of well packaged products (minimal packaging, recycled content) increased by 19.4% during the campaign, while sales of over-packaged products declined by 36%.[9]

Exit polls (conducted both during and after the campaign) showed that 72% of shoppers who noticed the materials were interested in the messages of the campaign. Forty-three percent of shoppers remembered one or more elements from the campaign, thereby reaching more than one million shoppers. This was considered to be a conservative estimate based on participation by half the supermarkets in the Bay Area, and assuming that supermarkets have a 50% market share. Shoppers at other supermarkets were reached by the media campaign, but are not included in this total.

While the campaign was still in progress 59% of shoppers remembered elements of the campaign. The main messages shoppers took from the campaign were:

While the messages of the campaign impacted large numbers of shoppers, relatively few took brochures (3%), and even fewer entered the contest (.6%). Shoppers reacted positively to the look of the campaign materials, with an average of 57% saying they liked the display, shelf tags, radio and television ads. The display units received the most favorable response, with 65% saying they liked the units. Radio ads were liked by 50%. The media campaign (radio, television and print) was remembered by more than 1.5 million people. On average, each Bay Area resident would have heard 6 radio spots and seen 3 television ads.

Almost 30% of shoppers said the campaign affected their buying habits. The following were self-reported behaviors:

The least cost-intensive educational materials were not always the least effective, and vice versa. Newspaper articles, messages on grocery bags, TV news stories and register coupons didn’t cost the cities/counties anything, but were responsible for almost 20% of the recognition of the project. Radio was the least cost-effective, responsible for 8% of the recognition, but costing $75,000.

Based on the favorable response generated by the Shop Smart campaign, representatives of cities and counties in the Bay Area meeting on March 5th, 1996 decided to make the campaign an annual event.

Shop Smart ’97 [10]

The second annual Shop Smart campaign was even larger than the first one, combining the efforts of 110 cities and counties in a 10-county Bay Area region with 285 supermarkets. Supermarket chain participation increased by 500% over 1996. The seven-week campaign kicked-off January 13 and ran through February 28, 1997. The budget was lower than for the 1996 campaign.

As in 1996, the campaign consisted of an in-store promotional component complimented by a multi-media outreach campaign. In-store promotional material included shelf tags, self-standing display units with brochures, posters and printed paper shopping bags. The campaign focused on four specific waste prevention and buy-recycled messages. The four messages were as follows:

· Close the Recycling Loop: Choose Recycled Packaging: Steel, Aluminum and Glass

City and county staff, non-profit organizations and volunteers installed in each participating supermarket:

Each display unit included a poster highlighting the four messages and brochures holders for seven different pieces of literature. Each of the campaign’s four messages were included on separate shelf tags. The shelf tags were placed on the supermarket shelves near selected types of products. For example: the message “Save Resources: Choose Less Packaging” was often placed near bulk items or concentrates. The “Close the Recycling Loop”: Look For “Made With Recycled Content” was placed near products made from recycled paper or plastic, or near items packaged in recycled paper or plastic. Each shelf tag was a different, bright color. The color scheme not only assisted in initial supermarket set-up, but it also helped consumers identify the different messages. The poster was printed using the same basic color scheme as the shelf tags. The poster was either attached to each of the display units or placed or hung separately in store windows. Four store chains printed campaign messages on an estimated 2.5 million paper shopping bags. Shopping bag distribution began in mid-January 1997 and continued in some supermarkets until May.

· A “comic wrap” in Sunday papers (both the San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner and the San Jose Mercury News)

· Press releases to newspapers, radio stations, television stations, and other print publications

· Public Service Announcements to print outlets, radio stations and television stations public Interviews with broadcast and print media

The campaign kicked-off in San Jose with a two-hour press event that included a drawing and prizes, a quiz testing shoppers’ waste prevention knowledge, price comparisons, mascots from the Steel Recycling Institute and the San Jose Conservation Corps, interactive and educational games for children and a live-remote radio broadcast by KARA 105.7 FM. Reporters from four television stations attended the event.

The known media activity included 37 newspaper articles, 19 newspaper ads, 12 City/Private Newsletters, 33 television public service announcements reaching more than 80 jurisdictions, 2 stations running paid radio advertising, 7 radio stations with news coverage, 10 stations running radio public service announcements, 5 stations running paid television ads, 5 stations with television news coverage. Much of the press coverage was bi-lingual. However, the overall media effort was considerably less than in 1996.

As in 1996, Pacific Bell Directory provided the use of their regional 1-800 recycling hotline. Jurisdictions could utilize a generic message or write their own individualized Shop Smart message. The campaign included the hotline number in various outreach materials, namely the television public service announcements, paid television commercials, “comic wrap” and other newspaper advertising, press releases and the printed shopping bag.

As in 1996, the campaign was evaluated for overall effectiveness. Comprehensive in-store surveys were conducted at participating supermarkets in four counties. Survey questions ranged from asking consumers what elements of the campaign they remembered to what they felt the campaign was trying to communicate. The survey format was identical to that developed for the 1996 campaign.

Exit polls showed that 42% (similar to the 43% in 1996) of shoppers remembered one or more elements from the campaign, thereby reaching more than one million shoppers. This was considered to be a conservative estimate, based on participation by 70% of the supermarkets in the Bay Area, assuming that one out of every two residents shop for groceries and assuming that supermarkets have a 50% market share. The elements of the campaign were recognized as follows (see Table 32):

Table 32 Elements of San Francisco 1997 Shop Smart Campaign Noticed

Four percent remembered the “buy recycled” radio commercials run by the Environmental Defense Fund and assumed they were part of the Shop Smart campaign. These results compare favorably with those from the one-week Minnesota study and with the Gristede’s campaigns (in fact, twice as many remembered bags and bag signs as remembered some of the educational materials in the San Francisco campaign).

Eighty-four percent who noticed the materials were interested in the messages of the campaign (up from 72% in 1996), with 54% saying it affected their buying habits (up from 30% in 1996). Self-reported behaviors increased in two cases and decreased in another.

Table 33 Behavior Change from 1996 to 1997 San Francisco Shop Smart Campaign

Table 34 Recollection of Main Message of San Francisco Campaigns: 1996/1997

While the messages of the campaign impacted large numbers of shoppers, relatively few took brochures (4% vs. 3% in 1996).

Shoppers reacted positively to the look of the campaign materials, with an average of 62% saying they liked the display, shelf tags, radio and television ads (up from 57% in 1996). The display units received the most favorable response, with 74% saying they liked the units.

As of 1997, Shop Smart has been recognized with the following state and national awards from the National Recycling Coalition, the National Association of Counties, the U.S. Department of Energy, the California Resource Recovery Association, Local Government Commission and the California Integrated Waste Management Board, and the National Awards Council for Environmental Sustainability. In early March 1997, the working group unanimously agreed to continue support of an annual Bay Area Shop Smart campaign.

Discussion of Shop Smart

The foregoing illustrates the kind of successful implementation and thorough saturation in a comparably sized metropolitan area that can be achieved with a well-designed, short-term environmental shopping campaign, that has the benefit of millions of dollars of direct and in-kind funding, hundreds of staff and volunteers, dozens of civic and corporate sponsors, and media advertising. It is interesting to note that when the media coverage (by paid advertising and free coverage) was cut, presumably due to the reduced budget for 1997, the recognition of the specific educational messages of the campaign were either about the same or less than that from the year before. This finding may indicate that there is a critical level of funding necessary to get the message out in a regional environmental shopping campaign. But despite the lower recognition of the specific issues, and despite the lack of monetary incentives (the $100 and $500 drawings did not occur in 1997), two of the three self-reported behaviors rose by over 10%. But despite the fact that shoppers reported increased environmental shopping behaviors in a couple of cases from 1996 to 1997, it is important to recognize that the percentages of shoppers practicing the environmental shopping behaviors are relatively low (10 to 30%), as compared with the follow-up Gristede’s shoppers, 25 to 75% of whom participated in the recycling and environmental shopping behaviors sometimes, often, or always. Another interesting finding is that brochures were taken by only three or four percent of those receiving treatment in both years. Since the degree to which the San Francisco shoppers participated in the environmental behaviors did not appear to be as high as the Gristede’s shoppers, 40% of whom saw the project brochures (as compared with 4% of the San Francisco shoppers), including brochures as part of a multi-media educational campaign may be critical to influencing behaviors.

Other Research

Though prompts, such as brochures, are low cost and have been effective as the basis for environmental shopping, recycling, and other campaigns, it has been found that behavior can revert to baseline levels once the prompt is removed,[11] when a one page informational handout on buying returnable bottles was withdrawn,[12] when newspaper articles and feedback on littering were discontinued [13], and when informational feedback and decals are discontinued.[14] If this reversion to baseline levels occurred in this study, the effect could have been shown in the follow-up questionnaire, since the bulk of the telephone surveys occurred about two months after the educational campaign was discontinued.

Vining, et. al.,[15] found that in a survey evaluating a community recycling education program, the respondents rated environmental concern higher on a scale of reasons to recycle than monetary or social reasons, suggesting an intrinsic motivation for continuing to recycle. This result compares favorably with one of the baseline survey results of this study; in that conserving landfill space and natural resources, and that recycling is considered “the right thing to do”, were more important motivators than the legal requirement to recycle.

Simmons and Widmar[16] have suggested that public familiarity with recycling may not necessarily generalize to waste prevention behaviors such as reuse, composting, and precycling or to other conservation behaviors. They concluded that, because waste prevention represents a new set of behavior patterns for most people, more extensive waste reduction and minimization education programs would be needed as compared with a recycling program. Bringing deposit containers back and recycling of magazines, cans and bottles was high (well over 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 5) but other waste prevention behaviors like patronizing repair shops and bringing bags were considerably lower (from 2 to 3.7 or so). The conclusion, that to be successful, an educational campaign to introduce new waste prevention (i.e., environmental shopping) behaviors should be more extensive (i.e., deploy more educational devices and approaches over a longer period of time) seems warranted.

The environmental shopping campaigns studied, for purposes of comparison, span a wide range of educational foci, educational devices, products on which the campaign was focused, budgets available, time span used for each campaign, and methodologies for evaluating the results. Though this study used some of the same educational targets, strategies, and devices as the others, the combinations were strikingly different, as were the timeframes and circumstances, and hence the results would have been expected to differ also. Despite these differences, for any given target behavior, several of the campaigns had little impact on changing shoppers' behaviors; the outcomes were, for the most part, similar to this study. Though many shoppers were aware that the Gristede's campaign was going on, and answered that they bought more refills and concentrates, and to a small extent brought more bags to the store, the effects were not dramatic, and the campaign did not turn our consumers into environmental shoppers.

[1] Harrison, Ellen Z., “Waste Reduction Through Consumer Education”, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Report 96-8.

[2] Harrison, Ellen Z., “Waste Reduction Through Consumer Education”, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, Report 96-8 referring to: Frierson, B. “Consumer Waste Reduction Awareness Report”, Report prepared for the City of Alameda, CA, 1994; and to Schultz, J. C., and Brill, C. R., “Consumer Cognition of Cornell Cooperative Extension “Trash Lite” Shopper Awareness Campaign”, Report prepared for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, NY. 1993.

[3] Linn, Nancy et. al., "Toward a Sustainable Society: Waste Minimization Through Environmentally Conscious Consuming", Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1994, Vol. 24, #17, pp. 1550-1572.

[4] Ledermann, Jeff and Linda Countryman. “Executive Summary of SMART Shopping Pilot Evaluation”, Minnesota Office of Waste Management, July 13, 1992.

[5] “Precycling – Final Report”, City of Boulder, Environmental Affairs. 1991.

[6] Foulke, Sally, "Environmental Supermarket Shopping -- Final Report", Cornell Cooperative Extension, Riverhead, NY. 1992.

[7] DeYoung, Raymond, et. al., “Individual Source Reduction Behavior: A Study of the Effect of Environmental and Economic Motivational Information”, Masters Project, University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources, June 21, 1991.

[8] Assman, David. “Shop Smart: Save Resources & Prevent Waste

	East	West	Michigan
Conserve Landfill Space	3.7864	4.0909	4.62
Conserve Natural Resources	3.8932	4.1439	4.62

Comic wrap	19%
Grocery bag	17%
Display unit	16%
Shelf tags	16%
Television commercial	11%
Newspaper ads	10%
Newspaper articles	8%

Behavior	1997	1996
Bought items with recycled packaging	30%	18%
Brought their own bags to the store	23%	10%
Bought bulk products	19%	29%

Message	1997	1996
Support Recycling	35%	37%
Reduce Waste	27%	34%
Buy in Bulk	15%	17%
Buy Recycled Products	13%	Not asked in 1996
Buy Recycled Packaging	11%	Not asked in 1996
Buy Recycled Content	11%	Not asked in 1996