First-of-its-kind 14-country study ranks consumers according to environmental behavior

Consumers in India, Brazil top index; US consumers rank last

The Goods sub-index, a combination of everyday consumption and waste disposal plus ownership of big-ticket items, consists of such variables as purchase and/or avoidance of specific products for environmental reasons,... Click here for more information.

WASHINGTON—The National Geographic Society and the international polling firm GlobeScan today unveiled a new mechanism for measuring and comparing individual consumer behavior as it relates to the environment. "Greendex™ 2008: Consumer Choice and the Environment — A Worldwide Tracking Survey" looks at environmentally sustainable consumption and behavior among consumers in 14 countries. This first-of-its-kind study reveals surprising differences between consumers in developed and developing countries in terms of environmentally friendly actions. This year's results are a baseline against which results of future annual surveys will be compared, in order to monitor improvements or declines in environmentally sustainable consumption at both the global level and within countries.

The Greendex survey was conducted online earlier this year among 14,000 consumers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain and the United States. A panel of 27 international experts in global sustainability helped identify which consumer behaviors were most crucial to investigate. One thousand people in each country answered questions that measured their behavior in the areas of housing, transportation, food and consumption of goods; each respondent earned a score that reflected the environmental impact of his or her consumption patterns, which included size and energy-efficiency of residence, commuting mode and distance and use of fresh water, among dozens of other measures. Consumers were then assigned a Greendex score (a measure of the relative environmental sustainability of their consumption patterns) out of 100. Consumers in Brazil and India scored highest; U.S. consumers scored lowest.