TechPulse 360

Buying green is wonderful on paper. But unless it saves money, the American public isn’t ready to fork over its paper currency.

This is due in part to a lingering skepticism over global warming, despite overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the planet’s growing peril. It also is the result of an unwillingness to associate global problems with local decisions, such as the purchase of plastic picnic ware.

For most consumers, “it’s not about saving the world,” says Scott Potter, a venture capital at San Francisco Equity Partners. “That’s for only 2 percent of the population.”

Most consumers aren't interested in saving the world with their purchases, says venture capitalist Scott Potter. Only about 2% are.

As scientists and well-meaning politicians urge the nation to become more environmentally conscious, the barrier to greater action becomes clearer each day. Living a greener life has got to go hand-in-hand with the simpler, more base motivation of financial benefit.

In other words, solar power, wind energy, electric cars and green consumer goods have to be less expensive to be popular. This conclusion was at the heart of SDForum’s “Consumer Clean Tech Trends” panel discussion Thursday evening in Silicon Valley. The evidence was overwhelming.

Look at utility customers across the country, insisted Jan Pepper, assistant general manager of energy resource planning at Alameda Municipal Power. Only about 2 percent of them are paying a premium for power derived from renewable sources.

“I don’t think people are willing to pay more for green,” she said.

The same is true with carbon offsets, which were hit hard during the recession. Provider TerraPass participates in expensive projects to recover methane from cow manure at dairy farms and landfills. Methane, a greenhouse gas, is much more damaging than CO2 but difficult to collect.

"I don't think people are willing to pay more for green," says Jan Pepper, an assistant general manager at Alameda Municipal Power.

“There is a very small number of people willing to do the right thing” and support the projects, says Pete Davies, TerraPass president. “It’s not a very big market.”

The reluctance to pay for green is apparent at retail as well. During the downturn, premium brands languished on store shelves, and green is considered a premium item. Whether soap or bleach, basic functionality drove purchase decisions, not global benefits.

At the same time, a basic level of “greenness” is being built into mainstream products from big producers, such as Procter & Gamble. “I don’t think you’re going to be on the shelf if you’re not green” in the future, says Potter. But of course that means buying decisions will be made on grounds other than green if it becomes the standard.

Perhaps the solution is to challenge people on the local level, where comparisons are easy to make, says investor Tod Francis of Shasta Ventures. There is no more powerful an incentive for urging people to make energy conservation improvements at home than knowing their neighbors are paying less, says Francis.

But then than means everything still to come down to dollars and cents.