The textile industry implements the circular economy the most, at least as far as the opinion of German consumers is concerned. According to them, the chemical industry performs worst. This was the result of a survey of 1,010 adults living in Germany conducted by the Munich software company Software Advice from July to August 2022.
82 percent of them said they prefer to buy products from companies with active circular economy policies; Interestingly, however, half do not believe companies when they state that they are committed to implementing sustainability measures in their processes.
Additionally, a large majority (85 percent) of participants said it is important to them to extend the lifecycle of the products they buy, but only 9 percent routinely participate in buyback programs.
How familiar are German consumers with the circular economy?
In general, Germans are very familiar with the concept of the circular economy; 69 percent stated that they were familiar with the concept. This takes second place behind Spain with 73 percent and ahead of participants in France, Canada, Australia and the UK, where the survey was also conducted.
77 percent of German respondents are also aware that their behavior can have a direct positive impact on the environment and more than half (54 percent) would even stop buying from a company if they found out that there were no measures to promote environmental protection circular economy contributes.
What do consumers do themselves?
The study also asked about their own actions and showed that German consumers most frequently implement the following sustainable measures: recycling waste (86 percent), using reusable shopping bags (82 percent) and disposing of electronic devices at designated recycling points ( 58 percent).
Surprisingly, the survey found that the textile sector, which is one of the most polluting industries when perceived as the sector, implements the circular economy the most: 43 percent found that the circular economy is “somewhat implemented” in the textile industry and 11 percent that it will be “strongly implemented”. The chemical industry fared the worst: 48 percent of those surveyed found that the circular economy was “little” implemented there and 26 percent that it was “not implemented at all”.
Buyback programs not yet established in Germany
However, when it comes to taking action, German respondents contradict themselves: while a large majority (85 percent) said yes when asked whether it was important to them to extend the lifecycle of the products they buy, only a few (9 percent ) routinely participates in such programs. 42 percent even stated that they never or almost never (25 percent) participate in buy-back programs (e.g. for clothing or furniture).
Distrust is high
Participants were also asked about the reasons they think motivate companies to contribute to a circular economy. Half (50 percent) named the increase in sales through more sustainable production as the main reason, but honest belief in the need for circular economy measures was also mentioned by an equally large proportion (49 percent).
This was followed by standing out from the competition (42 percent) and pure marketing purposes, which also includes greenwashing (40 percent). As far as trust in companies’ circular actions is concerned, it is not always easy for consumers to find out whether a company is actually implementing sustainable measures or just claiming to be so.
Opinion was divided here: while 49 percent of those surveyed stated that they believed companies when they said they were committed to implementing sustainability measures in their processes, 51 percent did not believe them. In a country comparison, Germany showed the highest value in terms of the extent of distrust.
“Today, detailed information about the sustainability of a product is more important than ever in order to meet the demand for transparency on the part of consumers. As a company, just claiming to use sustainability measures in the production processes is no longer enough for modern consumers,” summarizes Rosalia Pavlakoudis, content analyst of the study.
“A lack of transparency means that companies not only miss the opportunity to position themselves as an environmentally friendly company to their customers, but also miss out on potentially significant profits, since 50 percent of consumers would be willing to pay more for a product that made using circular economy methods,” advises Pavlakoudis.