The publisher of Consumer Reports magazine has opened GreenerChoices.org as an environmental spinoff to its main Web address, ConsumerReports.org.

The new site is meant to encourage consumers to make choices based on environmental factors such as energy savings.

The site's debut accompanies the release of a Consumer Reports survey that suggests most consumers do want to protect the environment, but often because of concern for their own health.

According to the survey - completed last March and including about 1,200 U.S. adults - nine out of 10 consumers said they take environmental and health factors into consideration when making purchases, and 43 percent said they were willing to pay more for electricity generated from clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power.

Nearly 70 percent of respondents also said they would be willing to pay extra to recycle televisions, computers and other large electronic appliances.

Respondents cited personal or family health as the most popular reason for buying green, followed, in order, by protecting natural resources for the future, reducing the environmental impact of waste and toxins, conserving energy and saving money.

"It's very clear that while consumers do not want to be labeled green, they are searching for green labels," Urvashi Rangan, an environmental health scientist and director of GreenerChoices.org and Eco-labels.org - another Consumer Reports site - said in a statement.

"What this says to us is that not only do consumers care, but they're willing to put their money where their mouth is," she said.

Nevertheless, the survey found some remaining hurdles to buying green.

For example, 43 percent of respondents said they lacked product information, 83 percent said they had to search for information on green products, and 83 percent also wanted to know the environmental ratings of products.

Consumers Union's rollout announcement said GreenerChoices.org will look at a broad range of environmental issues - including energy, climate change, agriculture, waste and dangerous chemicals - and relate this information to the products people buy.

The information should help consumers figure out how green products perform compared to mainstream alternatives.

The site will provide other services, CU said, including tools such as energy calculators, a description of how to obtain rebates for buying energy-efficient products, translations of food label terms, and information on how to recycle various items, such as mobile phones, motor oil, batteries and refrigerators.

The site's consumer advice also will extend to foods, including meat, fish, and dairy.

Patty Lovera, who works on food issues at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen in Washington said organic food sales have "gone through the roof" the past few years, and agreed with the CU survey findings that many consumers are taking a second look at what they eat because of health concerns.

"People are concerned about the way their food is raised," Lovera told United Press International.

Consumers want to know "certain things weren't done, like using synthetic pesticides or using antibiotics in the feed of the animals, if you buy organic meat. Those all have environmental impacts, but I think a lot of people believe they also have real health impacts ... so (there are) two sides to it - an altruistic side and a self-interest side."

As a successful example, she noted Niman Ranch in Oakland, Calif., which supplies organic pork to the high-end burrito chain Chipotle. "That's a sign of organic breaking into the mainstream," she said.

The Organic Trade Association of Greenfield, Mass., said in a news release earlier this month that sales of organic products reached $12.7 billion in 2004, with an estimated $12.2 billion in organic food and beverage sales alone.

The sector has seen a steady growth rate of nearly 20 percent per year over the past 12 years.

A spokeswoman with the OTA said the organization predicts $14.5 billion in organic food and beverage sales, and more than $15 billion in overall organic product sales, by the end of 2005.

Tyson Slocum, research director of the energy program at Public Citizen, agreed that people need more information as well as more incentives to buy and make green products.

"I think consumers would be supportive of more options and easier options and better labeling of options (to buy green products)," he told UPI. "That's clearly something that should become more standardized."

Slocum said green energy is an area where consumers need more information because they may not understand how some programs work. For example, Virginia state officials at one point were calling energy derived from burning biomass as "green," even though it produces polluting emissions.

Slocum said another point of confusion is what consumers receive when they pay for green energy.

"Consumers may think the electrons going into their light bulbs are actually produced by windmills and usually that's not the case," he said.

"What's happening is that the company is paying credits to a windmill farm in California, so, you're supporting green energy but it's not actually physically being delivered to your house."

Slocum said people might not want to pay higher prices for green energy if they knew it may not be reducing emissions in their own communities.

Jason Anderson, a spokesman for environmental group Conservation International in Washington, said it can be a struggle to get consumers to buy green if the benefits aren't immediately evident, such as a lower energy bill.

"When it comes to touting environmental issues, I think something energy efficient ... will resonate with consumers because they can see value added to their pocketbook," Anderson told UPI. He added when a company such as Starbucks tries to hawk coffee to save the rain forest, however, "it's a little more difficult."

He said if a consumer prefers a particular flavor profile, and if the coffee does not meet that profile, he or she may switch to a different coffee.

"If you're saying 'buy this product' so that you're a good person, I think that's always going to resonate with a core group of people ... but I think as a whole you need to find other reasons why a product will be valuable to a consumer. And I think that's ultimately going to come down to the quality of the product," Anderson said.

For instance, he said, hybrid vehicles have taken off in some cities that allow people who drive them to use high occupancy vehicle or HOV lanes.

"But I'm curious whether they'll be as popular (if) they start lifting those types of allowances, which they're really looking at here in Washington," he added.

Anderson said he thinks the many environmental labels applied to agricultural products such as "bird-friendly" or "rain forest-friendly" actually make it more difficult for consumers to figure out which green products to buy.

Such tags also may not tell the whole story of products. For instance, though a farmer grows organic coffee he might have chopped down 2 acres of rain forest to create the farm, Anderson explained.

The main thing holding people back from being more environmentally active consumers, he said, is price.

"Any number of consumers would walk into a grocery store .... and you have an organic or environmentally friendly coffee that's $6 a pound and a regular coffee at $4 a pound, more often than not you're going to have consumers choose that lower-priced coffee," Anderson said.

"So what really needs to happen is that big companies need to see more value in producing environmentally friendly products, but I think we're getting there."

Dar Haddix is UPI's Deputy Business Editor.

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