Firms Intrigued by Children’s Concerns About Environment

Children’s concerns about the environment are beginning to show up in their parents’ shopping baskets, and the marketplace smells the blossoming of a new trend.

To cultivate favor with young conservationists, businesses are using recycled products, forming alliances with environmental groups, and trying to understand children like never before.

After children wrote in telling the company to save trees, Archie Comics in Mamaroneck, N.Y., began printing its strips on paper made completely from recycled magazines, said David Silberkleit, vice president of marketing.

“That’s who we listen to here,” he said.

Archie also ran a special environmental issue, featuring Archie and Jughead’s misadventures with composting. It’s too early to see a pay-back on the bottom line, but Silberkleit said the return in good will has been big.

“I know I’m contributing to recycling,” said Cosimo Sherman, 13, an Archie reader from Los Angeles. “When I bought it, I wouldn’t be wasting any paper at all. No trees would be cut down for that comic.”

Amy Ingalls, 13, an Archie reader from Brooklyn, Conn., frequently tells her mother and father which cereal or hair spray to buy.

“If it says it can be recycled, I tell my father he should buy it so he can recycle it,” she said. “As far as like hair spray cans and stuff, I try to buy the non-aerosol kind and the pump so it will be better for the ozone layer.”

“Clearly, children are having an impact, and a growing impact, on their parents’ purchasing because of environmental information,” said Anthony Casale, president of Environmental Research Associates in Princeton, N.J. “This is something that is definitely not going to go away.”

Environmental Research’s sister company, INFOCUS Environmental, is interviewing 1,000 kids and their parents and 300 teachers to figure out what it takes to appeal to their green side.

In a recent survey by Environmental Research, parents said they didn’t buy Dove Bars because their children said the ice cream used too much packaging. But the parents did buy Arm & Hammer detergent because their kids told them it was nontoxic.

“We decided this is something we needed to know more about,” Casale said.

Some toy makers tried a green hook after the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990 created an explosion of environmental consciousness, particularly among children. A few succeeded, such as Hasbro’s GI Joe Eco-warriors, but many found it takes more than an environmental theme to sell a toy.

Playmates Toys Inc. of La Mirada dropped its Toxic Crusaders action figures when sales didn’t measure up.

“I thought it would strike a responsive chord, but I guess the chord was not as responsive as we thought it would be,” said President Richard Sallis.

Mattel is taking an indirect approach. Last year, it created a new position of vice president of environmental affairs.

“Kids are telling us they want certain things,” said Maki Papavasiliou, whose new responsibilities include reviewing Mattel’s packaging, products and manufacturing plants at home and abroad to be sure they meet environmental standards. Mattel also had drafted an environmental mission statement.

“We are convinced that good business and being sensitive to environmental issues are perfectly compatible,” he said.

The toy maker also plans to sponsor programs to teach children to be good environmental consumers.

“These are groups that will indirectly spread the environmental message for Mattel,” he said. “Research out there shows some healthy skepticism on the part of the consumer public to environmental claims made by manufacturers.

“Going out there and waving a green flag in many ways is not the best way of delivering a message about our concern about the environment. So we want to do it in cooperation with a respected, recognized organization that has environmental interests.”

The Hartman Group in Newport Beach tells its clients to support school programs, youth environmental groups and environmental projects, and to buy ads on environmental shows on TV, because that’s where kids learn about the environment.

“We find companies are very nervous about moving forward,” said Harvey Hartman, whose company sells advice on green marketing. “What I am saying to these companies is, ‘If you are not there with this kind of criteria, somebody else is going to be. At the end of the day, you are going to have to have an environmentally sound product just to play in the game.”’

Carl Frankel, editor and publisher of Green MarketAlert, a newsletter out of Bethlehem, Conn., said price, performance and convenience are still the big three factors when it comes to buying a product. But environmental safety is at the top of the second tier of issues.

“The place to sell the environment is to kids,” Frankel said. “Kids are really the drivers in significant ways. They are the educators.”