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Is Green the New Gold for Education Marketers?

By: David Nagel

8/19/2008

Furthermore:

  • 27 percent said they'd pay up to a 5 percent premium for a green vendor (tied with 2007);
  • 14 percent said they'd pay up to a 10 percent premium (down 11 points from 2007);
  • 1 percent said they'd pay up to a 25 percent premium (down four points); and
  • 2 percent said they'd pay up to a 50 percent premium (tied with 2007).

Interestingly, 44 percent indicated they might be willing to pay a premium for green products or services if they could display some sort of green logo, and 25 percent aid they would definitely be willing to do so.

But cash wasn't the only concern. An overwhelming 63 percent indicated they would not be willing to sacrifice any server performance for lower carbon emissions--up 22 points from 2007. The chart below shows further results.

Is Education Different?
In our own informal poll of 86 IT professionals in higher education, we found that, contrary to the cross-sector Rackspace survey, a large percentage would indeed be willing to pay a premium for green products and services given comparable performance with non-green technologies. While 27 percent of respondents indicated they would not be willing to pay a premium for green, an equal percentage said they would be willing to pay a 1 percent to 5 percent premium. Furthermore, 24 percent said they would be willing to pay a 6 percent to 10 percent premium. A not-insignificant 13 percent said they'd be willing to pay a premium of 11 percent to 20 percent for green technologies that were roughly equal in performance to less energy-efficient products. And 9 percent indicated they'd be willing to absorb a 21 percent or higher markup for green.

In other words, green is an upsell among education purchasers.

Along similar lines, in a piece of research released just recently by CDW-G, called the Energy Efficient IT Report (E2IT), 65 percent of higher education IT pros said they support environmental initiatives versus an average of 54 percent in all other sectors combined. They're also more likely than others (56 percent versus 46 percent) to work with top executives "who are concerned with environmental sustainability."

There are weaknesses in higher ed though.

"... [T]he E2IT Report detects high levels of support for energy efficiency among IT executives, but E2IT also finds serious deficits in the information needed to address it effectively," said CDW Vice President Mark Gambill, commenting on the findings. "There are tools to help, but the range of available options may be daunting for organizations that lack resources to tackle the challenge."