Pay For Clean and Green? Assessing the Willingness to Pay More for Green Power

Green marketing is largely concerned with resources conservation and the development of environmentally friendly strategies (Oyewole 2001). Past research has examined the attitudes and behaviours towards green tangible products (e.g. Paladino 2005), there is limited research that examines the motivations behind the purchase of green electricity. This paper will attempt to increase the understanding of consumer attitudes, and knowledge towards the purchase of green electricity employing exploratory research. Focus groups were conducted across each state of Australia. The findings indicate that education, knowledge, budgets and price were the most important indicators of green electricity purchase. However, consumers perceive green electricity to be unreliable and costly compared to a traditional form of electricity. Consumers were likely to switch to green electricity only if there was a clear error made by the service provider.