December 2022
ertonline.co.uk
Achieving sustainability in the home Gunjan Srivastava, CEO, BSH Home Appliances UK and Ireland
declined in volume this year, yet A- and B-rated refrigerators specifically have grown more than 300 per cent whereas the lower G-rated rated equivalents have declined. So even though the number of consumers buying these products is
smaller, Gunjan Srivastava
There are roughly 170 million large appliances in use in 28 million households in the UK. More importantly, these large appliances contribute towards about 30 per cent of the entire energy consumption of
the home. So understanding
consumers’ attitudes and the way they use these products is crucial right now, but also their attitudes in searching for new appliances when there’s such a large replacement market. We have several key insights – crucially that 70 per cent of consumers are interested in sustainability and sustainable practices, which is very encouraging. People are taking action, whether it’s reducing food waste, reducing the use of plastic, or limiting water usage, and this gives us hope that some of the stuff we are doing as a company and as an industry is finally hitting home.
In terms of product sales of refrigerators for example, GfK has reported this category has
it’s
pleasing to see that those being purchased are more energy efficient.
It’s also the same for washing machines – lower
energy level washing machine sales are declining and A- and B-rated machines are growing fairly rapidly. So how are consumers shopping and what is the criteria they use? Reliability is extremely important, but more importantly for us, many are also putting sustainability and energy efficiency as their top criteria. So this is all very encouraging and there is a lot of momentum behind this. But what we need to remember is that clearly price is a huge driving factor under the current circumstances. Our survey found that 79 per cent of consumers
still believe that the most sustainable or high energy rated products are more expensive – which is a fact. And a lot of people feel that saving money is currently of higher importance than saving the planet. So this is already a barrier that we have to address, and at BSH we are taking big steps to educate and inform people on the advantages of
using more sustainable products in their homes. We are partnering with other organisations and our retailers to communicate key messages, like with Finish on water usage; we’re also using tools from Youreko to quantify the physical savings when people buy a better energy-rated appliance, and we are working closely with AMDEA to utilise its savings calculator which helps consumers identify what they can do at home to help save money on bills.
All of this will help to ensure that people get the message and understand that even if they pay 50 or 60 pounds more to purchase an appliance, this will be more than covered in energy saving across the first year.
Another interesting point from our research – we found that more than 68 per cent of consumers surveyed preferred repairing than replacing an appliance, and that is something that needs to be monitored, because clearly there’s a deep understanding around the benefits of repairing and maintaining a product to extend its life. And there’s a lot more information around repairabilty now, with many brands trying to lower repair costs and make better availability of parts and servicing. From our perspective as a manufacturer it’s extremely important that the first time fix rate is as high as possible, and our retailers play a crucial part in this too as the link between us and the consumer so we have to ensure there’s a seamless sharing of information between all three parties.
Highlights from consumer research Hannah Lockley, Social Researcher, Office for Product Safety and Standards
We have been running our consumer tracker research for two years. We started by asking consumers to tell us about a product they had recently bought, and what factors were key in their decision making process. Product safety and environmental impact did not feature too high on the list, but consistently highest was purchase price. We did see a difference in some of the demographics
for different product types; for example, women are more likely to have product safety and environmental factors in their mind during the purchase process, whereas men were more likely to choose a brand name and speed of delivery.
There’s also a difference in age, which is common across a lot of our findings; those who are over 55 are twice as likely to prioritise product safety compared to those aged 18 to 24. However, those aged 18 to 24 are significantly more likely to consider the environmental impact of a product.
And this was the biggest factor for most of our
respondents when buying large domestic appliances, yet interestingly it’s actually lowest for those buying small electrical appliances. Looking at product repairs, with small electrical products such as chargers and kitchen appliances,
most people said they would dispose of the item and buy a new one rather than repair it. Of those most likely to repair are younger men. Breaking this down further, people said that the price of the original product and the cost of repair were the main factors in their decision. The perceived complexity of the project has a big impact, they said.
Overall, when people did seek a repair, nearly half were successful using a professional repairer; and for those attempting repair work themselves most people said they got their information using online videos and forums.
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