Inflation is behind declining public support for products and services branded as being aligned with climate change initiatives, according to a confidential Privy Council report.
While half of Canadians said they support such efforts, most said they wouldn’t pay more than a 10 percent premium for products and services branded as helping to “limit climate change,” according to a censored copy of the report obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter through an access-to-information request.
“Competing factors like inflation have moderated the attention paid to climate change,” the report reads.
Nearly half of respondents are willing to pay a premium of 1 to 10 percent, the survey said. Twenty-five percent of respondents said they’d be willing to pay a 1 to 5 percent premium while 24 percent said they’d pay 6 to 10 percent.
Twenty-three percent said they would be willing to pay a substantial premium of at least 11 percent or more while another 23 percent of those surveyed said they were not willing to pay anything.
“Perceived cost is the biggest barrier,” the report said. “More than two-thirds of respondents, 69 percent, strongly or somewhat agree that environmentally friendly options are too expensive compared to alternatives.”
While 58 percent of Canadians say climate change requires urgent action, only 30 percent strongly agree climate change will harm them personally. The survey also found 28 percent of respondents strongly agreed they had personally experienced the effects of climate change.
Twenty-seven percent of those polled said they “are already doing enough” to impact climate change while those who said they were unwilling to make changes “mainly believe other people or other countries should take action first, or that individual action will have little impact.”
One of the steps most Canadians said they take to help the planet is recycling. Ninety-two percent always or frequently recycle while 77 percent actively reduce food waste. Eating a plant-based diet is less popular with only 33 percent of respondents opting to do so.
Transportation habits aligned with climate change initiatives are also lower on the priority list, with dependence on private vehicles sitting at 87 percent, the report found. Few of those vehicles, however, were electric. Ownership of electric and hybrid vehicles was highest in households with income of more than $200,000, it said.
