Green Biz dons its hipboots and wades into the deep murky waters of public opinion polls on all things green. Some of the overall trends they found:

About four out of five consumers can't identify a sustainable product and nearly nine in ten can't name a sustainable company. ... There's still a lot of bluster on the part of consumers about their willingness to make good, green choices in the marketplace. The reality comes down to a small handful of products where consumers believe there either is sufficient value proposition (energy savings, health) or acceptable tradeoffs (higher prices, inconvenience). But don't fall for some marketers' everyone-is-going-green hype. ... Companies have their work cut out for them getting consumers smarter and more motivated about environmental issues. As it stands now, some consumers are losing interest. ... BBMG...released a report on The New Consumer -- its coinage for that portion of the U.S. adult population it describes as "values-aspirational, practical purchasers who are constantly looking to align their actions with their ideals; yet tight budgets and time constraints require them to make practical trade-offs every day." BBMG estimates about a third of Americans fall into this category, but only one in three "strongly agrees that it's important to purchase products with social and environmental benefits, even in a tough economy."

Ultimately, the data reinforce some of what came up in our Green Roundtable back in February: consumers seem to want to do the right thing, even if they aren’t entirely certain what that is, and there is more than a little mistrust of companies’ claims of sustainability. Consumers are also quite a bit undereducated (“large majorities incorrectly think that the hole in the ozone layer and aerosol spray cans contribute to global warming, leading many to incorrectly conclude that banning aerosol spray cans or stopping rockets from punching holes in the ozone layer are viable solutions”)—and the term “sustainability” itself is fraught with uncertainty. We will be contributing to the data stream, as the WhatTheyThink Economics and Research Center’s quarterly business conditions survey of the printing industry will revisit some of our perennial “green” questions.