Organic Cloths

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Consumer motivation for purchasingorganic cotton textiles

Methods in Natural Resource Management8. December 2004

AD 04030 Signe BorgenAD 04034 Klaus DonsAD 04035 Bjarke FerchlandAD 04003 Tilde HellstenED 5390 Thorbjrn NordlingS 2146 Martin Schitz

Supervisors:Henning Hgh Jensen

Jane Bech Larsen

Department of Agricultural SciencesInstitute of Forest and LandscapeThe Royal Veterinary andAgricultural University (KVL)


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ContentsPreface ........................................................................................................................................ i1 Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Background.............................................................................................................. 11.1.1 Brief history of organic farming...................................................................... 11.1.2 Cotton production............................................................................................ 1

1.2 Motivation for doing this study................................................................................ 21.3 Research question and hypothesis............................................................................ 3

2 Research Process .............................................................................................................. 42.1 Finding the Research Question ................................................................................ 42.2 Research Objectives................................................................................................. 42.3 Assumptions............................................................................................................. 52.4 Research Design....................................................................................................... 5

2.4.1 Questionnaire................................................................................................... 62.4.2 Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) ........................................................... 72.4.3 Interviews ........................................................................................................ 8

3 Methods and Materials.................................................................................................... 103.1 Questionnaire ......................................................................................................... 103.2 Participatory Rural Appraisal ............................................................................. 103.3 Interviews............................................................................................................... 11

4 Research Findings........................................................................................................... 134.1 Questionnaire ......................................................................................................... 134.2 PRA Results ........................................................................................................... 15

4.2.1 Scoring .......................................................................................................... 154.2.2 Ranking ......................................................................................................... 164.2.3 Pair-wise Ranking ......................................................................................... 164.2.4 Case Study Story ........................................................................................... 17

4.3 Interview findings .................................................................................................. 184.3.1 J Mrup Stof ApS:......................................................................................... 18

4.3.2 Villy Dyhr ..................................................................................................... 194.3.3 Informal Interview......................................................................................... 205 Discussion and Reflections............................................................................................. 22

5.1 Reflection on the methods...................................................................................... 225.1.1 The Questionnaire Method............................................................................ 225.1.2 The PRA methods ......................................................................................... 235.1.3 The Interview Method................................................................................... 23

5.2 Reflections on the results ....................................................................................... 245.2.1 Reflections on the Questionnaire Results...................................................... 255.2.2 Reflections on the PRA Results .................................................................... 265.2.3 Reflections on the Interview results .............................................................. 275.2.4 General discussion......................................................................................... 28

6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 29References ............................................................................................................................... 30

Appendix A Research Process LFA matrixAppendix B: QuestionnaireAppendix C: Results from questionnaire GraphsAppendix D: Ranking and ScoringAppendix E: Pair-wise RankingAppendix F: Semi-strukturered interview with Forbrugerrdet (in Danish)Appendix G Semi-structured interview with J. Mrup stof ApS (in Danish)Appendix H Lists of potential key informants


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1 Introduction

1.1 Background

1.1.1 Brief history of organic farmingThe modern understanding of organic farming has roots back in the 1920s whenRudolf Steiner held his lectures on biodynamic farming (Willer et al., 2004), eventhough all farming before the introduction of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and highyield extensive industrialized farming could be called organic in terms of externalinputs. Since then the organic farming movement has developed separately frombiodynamic farming. In 1987, Denmark, as the first country in Europe, passed anational law on organic farming (Padel, 2003). The European Community followedup with the initial organic farming legislation1, which was passed in 1991 (Willer et al.

2004). It defined organic food production in terms of standards, certification andlegislation (Lampkin, 1990).

Organic agriculture is today practised in almost all countries, and its share ofagricultural land and farms is growing. More than 24 million hectares are organicallymanaged worldwide. (Willer & Yussefi, 2004). Organic production and trade hasbeen growing at an average of 20-25% per annum in recent years (Ton, 2002a)

1.1.2 Cotton production

Cotton is grown in a wide range of climatic conditions and agricultural systems, from

smallholder agriculture typical of developing countries (e.g. Sudan and Uzbekistan) tolarge-scale, highly mechanized, industrial systems typical of countries like the UnitedStates and Australia. More than 60 countries is growing cotton and the annualproduction is around 19 million tons. World production of organic cotton in 2001amounted to 6.000 tons of fibre or about 0.03% of global cotton production. The threelargest organic cotton producers were Turkey (29%), USA (27%) and India (17%).On a global basis most of the produced organic cotton was consumed in Europe,(approximately 58 % of the total production) and second most in the USA(approximately 33%) (Ton, 2002b).

Besides being an important product in Europe and USA, cotton is also a major cashcrop throughout developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This makes cottonproduction and processing an important source of income for millions of small-scalefarmers, as well as a source of foreign currency at a national level. In many countriestherefore, strenuous efforts have been made to increase production, mainly byincreasing yields through the intensive use of chemical inputs, irrigation and the useof higher-yielding varieties (Ton, 2002a). These methods for conventional cottonproduction have however been proven to cause a vast number of problems, e.g.

reductions in soil fertility and declining soil organic matter, pollution of rivers and

1 EC 2092/91


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lakes (Myers, 1999), pesticides constituting a health risk (Garry, 2004; Schafer &Kegley, 2002). The negative effects have caused consumers to ask for alternativeproduction methods.

The first organic cotton projects were initiated in the 1980s primarily by Europeanand US clothing companies. As there was no organic cotton being produced, the

companies had to organize each step in the production chain themselves, from thefarmers to the consumers (Elzakker, 1999). Transforming a cotton crop into a textileinvolves many stages of processing, often in a number of different countries, with avariety of skills and technologies. This long production chain complicates certificationand labelling of organic cotton products (Fletcher & Waayer, 1999). This decreasesthe consumers trust in the organic product because of the increase in fraudpossibilities and/or the differences between certification bodies of the countries thatprocesses organic cotton.

1.2 Motivation for doing this studyRegardless of the environmental impacts of cotton production and processing, it is inthe end the consumers who influence how cotton is produced through their selectionof textiles. This makes it interesting to study the motivation for a particularconsumption choice. Information about the motivation behind certain consumptionchoices can then be used for marketing purposes, especially advertising. Sellingorganic textile is a niche market within organic sales; hence there are greatopportunities for expanding this aspect of the organic market. Many studies have beenmade on consumer motivation for purchasing organic food, however, very little

information is available on the motivation for purchasing organic textiles. Wetherefore find it relevant to perform such a study, giving a better understanding of theorganic textile market. This information might then help expand the organic textilesector.

According to Villy Dyhr, Director at the Danish Consumer Council, the consumerschoose certified environmental friendly products when they see personal benefitsfrom doing so (Henriksen, 2004). British consumer surveys have also revealed thatpersonal reasons in particular care for one own health is the main motivation forbuying organically produced food products (Padel, 2003). When searching forInternet shops selling organic cotton, we have encountered a large proportionprimarily focusing on organic clothing for children. Together the previous threepointers can be seen as an indicator of personal reasons being the main motivation forbuying organic textiles. We have decided to investigate if this is the case, since itmight explain why the organic textile market is so small.


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1.3 Research question and hypothesis

In short our research question can be written as:

We have decided to work with two different abstraction levels. The first one containsonly two different alternatives: The motivation for buying organic textiles is eitherpersonal, e.g. concerns about ones own health, or altruistic, meaning for exampleconcern for the environment and the wellbeing of other people. This high abstractionlevel includes only these two alternative motivations. The second abstraction level islower and should give more detailed information about the motivation. This levelincluded different alternatives such as health, fashion, life style, quality, environ-mental concerns, farmers working conditions and concern for natural resources.

Our selection to work with two different abstraction levels has several benefits. Weare able to answer if personal or altruistic reasons are the dominating motivation whileworking at the lower level. The lower level is easier to understand and the alternativesare more detailed and concrete. The different options on the lower level can then beclassified as personal or altruistic and information about the higher level gained. Thelower level gives a better understanding of the motivation and is more easilyapplicable in advertising. This construction allows testing of our hypothesis:

The consumers motivation for buying organic cotton textiles is mainlypersonal.

What is the primary motivation of the Danish consumers for buying textilesmade from certified organically produced and processed cotton?


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2 Research Process

2.1 Finding the Research Question

We started our research on the 9th of September 2004 by making a group contract andconstructing a Logical Framework Approach (LFA) matrix of the research process.The starting point for developing our research question was the given main topic:Can organic farming developing countries protect natural resources, improve workconditions, etc.? We discussed the research topic and narrowed it down to thefollowing question: Can organic farming by design protect natural resources andreduce poverty amongst poor rural households in (the country) X, which are using

organic farming by default?

We decided to focus on sub-Saharan Africa and the following research question was

suggested on the 22nd

September: Can transfer from organic farming by neglect toorganic farming by design both reduce poverty and protect natural resources? Themain advantage of this question would have been a well-defined target group,for thequestionnaire, mentioned with contact information in the IFOAM Africa survey(Parrott & Elzakker, 2003). This suggestion was turned down on the next meeting, onthe 23rd of September, because a majority of our group felt that the proposed researchquestion was backtracking by including social issues that had been excluded from ourfocus on a previous meeting. Another disadvantage was the broadness of the questionas the majority of the group members were interested in an in-depth investigation on

the effects on natural resources. The following research question was then adapted: How does shifting from organic farming by neglect to organic farming by design

affect soil degradation? The focus on soil degradation was chosen, as the possibilitieswithin natural resources seemed endless. However, we faced problems with definingthe difference between organic farming by neglect and design. Furthermore, werealized that the primary target group for our assessment of this research had to be thelocal farmers themselves, i.e. an inaccessible group. On the 30th of September werealized that the research subject had to be changed into something directly assessablein Denmark.

Through outside intervention we were able to start over with a new topic:How doesthe organic consumer perceive the effects on natural resources of organic cotton

production compared to the actual effects on natural resources from organic cotton

production? We then wrote our synopsis about this question. We decided to simplifyand focus our research on the question investigated in this report, based on thefeedback of our synopsis. An updated version of our research process LFA matrix isfound in Appendix A.

2.2 Research Objectives

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the Danish consumers motivationfor buying textiles made from certified organically produced and processed cotton.We have divided this objective into the following sub-objectives:


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1 To test our hypothesis that the consumers motivation for buying organic cottontextiles is mainly personal.

2 To determine the most and least important motivation on our lower abstractionlevel.

3 To determine the relative importance of the different motivations on our lower

abstraction level.4 To compare the results of our questionnaire with the results of the Participatory

Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques and interview findings.5 To get in depth knowledge on the motivations through the use of PRA techniques.6 To gain knowledge about what major organic textile firms knows about the

consumer motivation for buying organic textiles.7 To gain insight in what is known at governmental institutions about the consumer

motivation for buying organic textiles.

2.3 Assumptions

The making of this paper depends on several conditions being fulfilled, as is the casefor every project. Some conditions that are not fulfilled can be compensated for, butsome are critical, i.e. killer assumptions, and it is therefore important to identify themin an early stage and make sure that they are fulfilled or removed.

The killer assumptions of this work were:

Every group member commits to the project.

We can find a suitable target group for the questionnaire. We find people who are willing to participate in a PRA.

We find three suitable interviewees.

The quality of the questionnaire answers, interviews and PRA are such that wecan answer our research question.

We dealt with the first one by making a group contract. The last four were affected bythe precise research topic and we spent a lot of time trying to design a topic whichwould give us a suitable target group, make it most likely that we would be able to get

acceptable questionnaire answers, results from the PRA and find three willinginterviewees with knowledge about the field.

2.4 Research Design

Our research design was derived from our research question. We applied the LogicalFramework Approach (LFA) and identified the five killer assumptions mentioned inchapter 2.3. Four of them were directly affected by our research topic. We thereforeused brainstorming to construct a problem tree, giving many possible topics, whichwe then spent a lot of time discussing. We used a narrative approach in our decision

process, taking decisions that we all could agree on and majority decisions indisputable cases. This approach unfortunately proved to lead to dead ends in somecases, so we had to add backtracking.


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We have a research question and a related hypothesis, which is investigated by the useof three methods: questionnaire survey, PRA and interviews. It is normal to start withthe question and then select the appropriate methods, but since the methods weregiven to us, we had to do it bottom up. We had to examine what each method was

usable for and then select a topic and research question, which utilized the strengths ofeach method.

The three methods are suitable for a combination of a descriptive enumerative surveyand a more analytical, relational type of survey, which hence is our research design.We wanted to state proportions different motivations of the Danish organic cottonconsumers. To obtain this information questionnaire surveys and quantitative PRAmethods were applied. We also wanted to explain why consumers have differentmotivations and for this qualitative PRA methods and interviews were conducted.

2.4.1 Questionnaire

The first part of the research design was the use of a questionnaire. Compared to themore in-depth and qualitative information gained from an interview, a surveyperformed by a questionnaire gains quantitative information. This enables statisticaltreatment for proving significance of consumers motivations for buying organic,certified cotton textiles.

We considered the information gathered in the questionnaire to be on the secondary

level of abstraction. The answers to the questions could explain whichpersonal/altruistic motivations the consumers had, but not in detail why the choiceswere made.

A stratified purposeful sampling (opposed to a random sampling)was the aim of thesurvey focusing only on consumers of organic clothing/textile. The decision wasmade mainly because of time/resource constraints - targeting a broader populationwould not have given us sufficient data on our subject in a reasonable time.

The questionnaire was designed to be semi-self-administered in the sense that therespondent should fill out the questionnaire on her/his own, but we would be aroundfor questions or assistance, in order to assure completion of the questionnaire. Thiswas mainly done to leave out errors in completing the questionnaires. In this way, wewere sure that we got sufficient usable answers in reasonable time.

We assumed it would be interesting to investigate consumers general organic habitsand their habits on organic clothes to see if there were any correlations between these.Besides the habits, we made questions on their knowledge on ecology, eco-labels, the

motivations behind their choices for purchasing organic clothes and their opinions onhow it was marketed. An intro in the questionnaire stating the purpose of the survey,


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how the results would be treated and the estimated time of completion was included(Questionnaire, Appendix B).

Most of the questions were designed in a closed-ended format with an otherresponse option in appropriate cases. In questions containing several options

independent of each other, the respondents were to mark all the statements they couldrelate to - the most important should be marked by a circle. The sequence of questionswas put in a logical order starting with an overall view on the respondents habits oforganic consumption in general and then moving on to habits on organic textileconsumption. Matrix-questions and Likert-scale questions (Babbie, 2002) were madein some cases (eco-label question, general organic consumption question), for spaceefficiency and faster completion of the question by the respondent. The demographicquestions (gender, age, income etc.) were placed in the end of the questionnaire tomotivate the respondents in answering questions about the surveys subject right away

instead of starting with trivial personal questions. Finally we offered the respondents acopy of the final report by writing their e-mail-address in the end of the questionnaire.The estimated time of completion was set to be about 5 minutes, which we found anappropriate amount of time to withhold respondents on the street and still being ableto present reasonable amounts of information in the questionnaire

2.4.2 Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)

The second part of the research design is the use of PRA methods. These are used onthe secondary abstraction level of our research, which involve more detailed

information of the specifics of consumer motivation of purchasing organic cottonproducts. Three PRA methods have been chosen for this report: ranking and scoringand use of stories.

The most appealing PRA method to use in our investigation was the ranking andscoring because we are investigating consumer motivations or opinions. Ranking andscoring has been used to assess peoples opinions for a long time but also to assessexpectations, beliefs, judgements, attitudes and preferences (Mikkelsen, 1995). It isalso seen within social marketing that the use of ranking and scoring can help to

develop strategies for changing human behaviour, which is to some extend what weare experimenting with in this report by attempting to unveil what encourages theconsumer to purchase organic cotton clothing.

We have chosen to use both the ranking and the scoring tools to obtain ordinal as wellas cardinal results, in order to capture any similarity within the levels of motivation.The ranking will be made of how much the respondents agree with words that couldmotivate the purchase. A list of statements will be used to have the respondent scorefrom 1-5 on how much the respondent agrees with the statement being the motivation

of the purchase. See Appendix D for the scoring and ranking exercise. Ranking willalso be done pair-wise and this exercise can be viewed in Appendix E. We haveidentified 8 different reasons for motivations, but to counter the fact that we, the


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outsiders, are setting the motivations for a group of people (the organic cottonclothing consumer) there is a 9th motivation that the participant can choose to fill inwhen scoring the statements.

The final PRA will be made in form of a story of what the decisive motivation was the

very first time the respondent purchased an organic piece of cotton clothing. Hearingthis story would give more in-depth information on the actual event and whattriggered it. To this PRA method a respondent should be specifically sampled on thebasis of if they claim to have a clear memory of the event stated above.

Summarizing the PRA used in this investigation:1. Ranking made of individuals

a. Ranking of 8 motivationsb. Pair-wise ranking

2. Scoring made by individuals on 8 (or 9) statements3. Story of the event or action, which lead to the initial organic purchase

2.4.3 Interviews

The last part of the research was the completion of qualitative interviews. Theinterview process was made up of two stages.

1. An initial planning stage2. The completion of the in depth interviews

The first stage was the initial interview planning process where potential keyinformants with special knowledge about organic and certified cotton products werelocated and listed. The initial list can be seen in Appendix H. Key informants wereselected according to the following criteria so that both were represented:

Large well-known companies with a considerable fraction of turnover fromcertified cotton.

Public institutions or organizations dealing either with Danish consumers (inrelation to textiles) or organic certification.

Organic consumer NGOs were omitted from the list as they only traded organic foodproducts.

After a brief research on the key informants they were contacted by phone in order toappraise if an interview would be fruitful and if so, to ask for an interview. In the caseof Villy Dyhr a more thorough research had been made prior and an interview wasapplied for right away.

With the experience from this exercise a second stage was carried out. Here a new listof potential key informants was made and second phone round was carried out(appendix H). Based on knowledge from the first phone round interview guides in the


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3 Methods and Materials

3.1 Questionnaire

Before the final questionnaire design was decided on, a test version of thequestionnaire was probed on friends and family. The pre-trial of the questionnairerevealed some glitches in e.g. question formulation, but it also showed an averagecompletion time of about 5 minutes, which as mentioned earlier was consideredreasonably for keeping people busy on the street with our questionnaire. After thefinal questionnaire outline was approved, the questionnaire was to be answered by atleast 30 respondents in order to get a sample large enough for providing statisticalevidence/significance. The 6-page questionnaire was made in 35 copies to have sparesin case of e.g. errors in the answers from the respondents.

The data collection was performed by two group members face-to-face with therespondents. The respondents were contacted on the street outside the followingCopenhagen-based stores carrying organic textiles:

Aniel: Zenz: Pure BabyFrederiksberg All 70 Rosenborggade 8 Willemoesgade 41820 Frederiksberg C 1130 Kbenhavn K 2100 Kbenhavn www.aniel.dk www.salonzenz.dk www.purebaby.dk

Senza: Retur:Rosenvnget All 6 Blgrdsgade 31c2100 Kbenhavn 2200 Kbenhavn. Nwww.senza.dk

The organic textile stores offered different organic textiles, (children clothes, designerclothes, towels, sheets, underwear etc.) which could attract a wide range of organictextile consumers. If the stores obliged to having us questioning their customers, wepolitely asked the customers if they would be interested in spending 5 minutes

answering questions about organic clothes.

After the data was collected (32 usable questionnaires), it was processed in Excel2002 and Sigma Plot 8.0. The main results are graphically presented in Appendix C.

Materials:Clipboards, 35 questionnaires, pens, and patience.

3.2 Participatory Rural AppraisalThe sampling procedure for the PRA methods is similar for all the exercises since thesame respondent was asked to do the three types of PRA (the scoring, the ranking and


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a pair-wise ranking). This can enable us to triangulate intra PRA methodologically.The storyteller will be found among the 7 respondents. The location of the PRAexercise was a shop Aniel (the same as for the questionnaire collection) sellingprimarily organic childrens clothes. Below an overview of the amount of respondentsobtained from each PRA exercises:

Table 1:. Overview of the PRA methods used.

1.IndividualRanking

2. IndividualPair-wiseRanking

3. IndividualScoring

4.StoryTellers

7 7 7 1

The respondents for PRA exercises will all be selected because they have justpurchased an organic piece of cotton clothing (or they had been browsing in the

organic cotton shop). We therefore assume that they have an idea of the motivationfor the purchase.

Data collection will be done in form of the paper and pens for the PRA exercise 1-3where the respondents themselves write the answers. For PRA 4 use of a tape recorderwould be optimal to get the full details of the story, without interrupting the narrativetrail. The stories should then be replayed and the facilitator will note general points offocus down. In practice the facilitators wrote down the story after it was told.

Analysis of the PRA rankings and scoring will be made inter and intra methodological.By inter methodological is meant the relations found between the questionnaire resultand ranking and scoring results and to some extend also between the latter and theconsumer motivations observed through the interviews. Intra methodological methodsinclude comparison between the ranking, pair-wise ranking and the scoring. From thiswe can see if the different PRA methods resulted in different responses.

3.3 Interviews

As mentioned earlier the interview process consisted of two stages. During the firstphoning session it was found that - apart from Villy Dyhr - none of the potential keyinformants were suitable for an in depth interview. However, much useful backgroundinformation was obtained through these informal conversations of 10-15 min. (seeparagraph 4.3). We anticipate that most relevant information The Danish Eco-labelSecretariat (Miljmrkesekretariatet) and Kansas Denmark A/S were actuallyanswered in the first phone session.

Based on the experience from the first phone session, a new list of potential key

informants was made. Interview guides were made for each company in advance withthe objective to perform the interview during the first call. In the case of the


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Pretesting the interview_________________________Interviewer: Klaus DonsInterviewee: Thorbjrn Nordling

Non- verbal behavior:

The interviewer should avoid crossing hisarms during the interview as this indicatesnervousness

Hands are to be maintained motionless

Eye contact has to be kept when questionsare asked

Verbal dimension:

New relevant questions appeared

Question list was pruned for unnecessaryrepetitions

Probes worked fine and were found easyto improvise.

Prompts were found useful

The interviewer has to improve the use ofprompts when the interviewee looses track

The interviewer has to be better preparedto answer contra questions about theproject and objectives.

Other: Tape recorder worked fine

companies Novotex 2 and J. Mrup stof ApS e-mails were sent out in advance topotential key informants. However, all personnel inNovotex denied participating ininterviews due to time- constraints.

The company J. Mrup stof ApS was chosen for an interview and an appointment

was made. Comprehensive interview guides for both Villy Dyhr and Jrgen StigMrup (Director ofJ. Mrup Stof ApS) are seen in Appendix F and G (in Danish).

The first interview was carried outface-to-face with Villy Dyhr at the

Danish Consumer Counsil. KlausDons worked as interviewer, sincehe speaks Danish, while ThorbjrnNordling took notes and handled the

tape recorder. The second interviewwas a telephone interview with

Mrup Stof ApS, handled by KlausDons and recorded. A pre-test wasrun before the first interview withthe use of a video camera and taperecorder assessing both thenonverbal behavior of theinterviewer as well as the interview

guide. The results from the pre-testare listed in table 2 .

Materials:Video camera, dictaphone, telephones, laptops with internet access.

2 One of the most important Danish textile companies working with certified cotton products. The onlyDanish textile company certified with both EU-Blomsten and Svanen

Table 2: Conclusions from pre-test ofinterview guide for Villy Dyhr


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4 Research Findings

4.1 Questionnaire

The fieldwork was conducted over 4 days (17/11-20/11 2004) and we received 32useful questionnaires. All the data was processed in Excel and the findings for eachquestion will be presented in the following text. A selection of graphs showing themost interesting tendencies was added to the text the graphic presentation of theresults can be found in Appendix C:

Organic production in general

1. Most organic consumers regarded the lack of pesticides (91%), animal welfare(91%), absence of medicine (75%), lack of fertilizer (72%) and higher quality

(66%) to be the main components of organic production. If they had to choosethe most important component, the absence of pesticides counted for 44%whereas animal welfare and higher quality scored respectively 28% and 19%.

2. Some 16% of the consumers did always look for eco-labels when they wereshopping, 44% did often look for the labels, and 31% looked occasionally.

3. The eco-labels were trusted to live up to the standards by 56%, whereas 28 %did not and 16 % were unsure.

4. There were big differences between the consumers knowledge about differenteco-labels. Generally, people were better at recognizing and name of the EU

Flower and The Nordic Swan Label than the other labels. The ability torecognize and name the labels was very unevenly distributed. Few peopleknew all about the labels, whereas the main part was familiar with only a fewlabels.

Recognition of eco-labels

Theflower

Europ

eanecolabel

Demeter

Nordicswan

Goodenviro

nmental

choice

Krav(EKO) Sk

al

Person

s

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Know the eco- label

Know the name

Know if it is an organic label or notDo not know the label

Figure 1: Respondents recognition of eco-labels (question 4)


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Organic clothing and textiles

5. Compared to other organic products, clothes was the least frequently boughtarticle. Most people bought organic clothes and textiles occasionally (47%) orseldom (25%), whereas people bought mass-produced food products much

more frequently.Organic habits

Milk

Eggs

Meat

Cerea

ls

Vegetables

Cosmetic

s

Clothe

s

Christma

strees

Percent

0

20

40

60

80

100

Always

Often

Occationally

Seldom

Never

Figure 2: Consumers habits on different organic products (question 5)

6. & 7. The clothes and textiles were almost always bought in specialized shopsand the main part was buying children clothes (84%). Thirty-four percent werebuying organic underwear. Both towels and sheets were bought by 28% of therespondents.

8. The highest demand was on cotton and wool, demanded by 91% and 81%respectively. Silk, flax and hemp were bought by respectively 53%, 44% and25% of the questionnaire replies.

9. The main criterion for buying organic clothes and textiles was the absence ofpesticides in the production (34%). The more personal criteria were health(25%), quality (22%) and lifestyle (16%). Only one respondent answered thatthe fashion was the main motivation.


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Motivations for consuming more organic clothes

Fashion

Price

Quality

Health

Lifestyle

Nope

sticid

es

Goodwo

rking

cond

itione

s

FairT

rade

Numberofpositivean

swers

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

MotivationMain motivation

Figure 3: Consumers motivation for purchasing more organic clothes (question 5)

10. Motivations for consuming more organic clothes were lower price and abroader selection (72% each), design (53%) and more information on theorganic products (28 %).

11. & 12. Seventy-five percent of the respondents answered, that marketing oforganic clothes was not satisfying. This group would like more promotion inthe big medias and in the stores. Marketing satisfied only one respondent and22% were unsure.

Personal data

Our respondents were mainly women (84%) and 81% of the respondents hadchildren. Sixty-three percent were between 30 and 40 years old, and 50 % hadan advanced education. The income was evenly distributed

4.2 PRA Results

4.2.1 Scoring

The distribution of points given to motivations is listed in figure 1. Here it is seen thatthe highest scoring motivations were Environmental concerns (Miljhensyn) andConcern for natural resources (Omtanke for naturresourcer). Very close on the secondplace are the working conditions for the cotton farmers and lifestyle/belief. The least

motivating factor was coincidence, however it shall be mentioned that thecoincidence category actually means that the participant has neglected to have amotivation. The remaining of the motivations resulted in the scoring in the order of


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Quality, with almost twice as many points as, Fashion and Health, which were giventhe same amount of points. Please see Appendix D for the statements that were to bescored by the participants.

4.2.2 Ranking

Table 3 shows the order of the ranking expressed in ranking value of the 8motivations taken as an average of the 7 PRA participants ranking exercises. Theranking value expresses Concern for Natural Resources as being the highest priorityof purchasing organic cotton textiles. The least important motivation, besides thepurchase being a coincidence, is fashion.

Table 3: The Ranking values given to the motivations and the frequencies of these rankings

Ranking Value Motivations1 General concern for natural

resources2 Environmental concerns3 Working conditions4 Lifestyle/beliefs5 Quality6 Health7 Fashion8 Coincidence

4.2.3 Pair-wise Ranking

The pair-wise ranking showed that Concern for Natural Resources is the highestmotivation for organic cotton purchases. Health and Environmental Concerns isequally important as motivating factors. Health is the only motivation that receivedhigher points for the pair-wise ranking than both the other two PRA methods. Thepair-wise ranking gives two other motivations (Environmental Concerns and Concernfor Natural Resources) higher points than the scoring exercise, however not for the

single ranking. Please notice Appendix E for the illustration of the pair-wise ranking.


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Comparing results

Health

Workingconditions

Quality

Fashion

Lifestyle/belief

Enviro

nmental

concerns

C

oincidence

Conce

rnfor

naturalresourc

es

Points

0

2

4

6

8

10

Scored

Ranked

Pairwise ranked

Figure 4. Illustrating the three different results obtained from using PRA methods ofscoring, ranking and pair-wise ranking. The higher the points the more motivating thefactor.

From Figure 4 above we can see that the altruistic motivations weighted more than thepersonal ones for all the three methods, hence the hypothesis did not prove true wheninvestigated by the PRA methods. The pair-wise ranking was the PRA method thatgave personal motivation (e.g. Health) the highest points. As described belowhowever, the case study story told clearly illustrates that the motivation for theprimary organic cotton textile purchase is personal.

4.2.4 Case Study Story

The case study story was told by participant #5 without facilitator introducing thetopic and was received in form of what the participant wanted to contribute with,meaning that there was no additional questions or added after respondent ended thestory, this being different from an interview situation. The story was about the firsttime the participant had actually purchased an organic piece of cotton clothing. Shehad more or less coincidentally gotten a job at a clothing store selling organic cottontextiles and clothes and had bought underwear for her baby son. Her son wasextremely allergic and had troubled with rashes for the first year of his life. After theorganic cotton underwear was used she noticed a change in the skin of her baby andfrom that day on everyone in her family only has organic underwear. The storyexplains how the first purchase was more or less a coincidence but after feeling the


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results continuous purchases were made and at present time motivating factors wereConcern for natural resources and Environmental concerns.

4.3 Interview findings

During the interviews much experience was gained, but answers to our objectives and

research question were scarce. In the following the most important information fromthe in depth interviews and some information from the informal conversations issummarised.

4.3.1 J Mrup Stof ApS:

Mrup was founded in the late 1960s and has worked with environmental issues inthe production since the late 1980s. In 2002 Mrup applied for the EU-flowercertification. They expected that 30-40% of their assortment would be labelled withthe EU-flower.

The interview was carried out with Ellen Hgh (EH), Environmental coordinator atJ.Mrup Stof ApS and the results are shown next:

The company works with the following certifications:

EMAS (European certification for Environmental Management System)

Eco Tex (The worlds largest certification system for textiles (SEMC 2004)).

ISO 140000 EU-Flower

IVN/IMO (Nature textile from Institution for market ecology) - the Germanenvironmental certification corresponding to the Swedish KRAV.

Mrup has not made any direct investigation of their costumers motivation forpurchasing certified cotton. However, EH stated that if organic and environmentalfriendly cotton products are to be attractive for Danish consumers the price has to beclose to the price of conventional products.

Mrup holds the EU-flower certificate, but until todayMrup has not yet sold anyproduct with this label. EH was asked whetherMrup is still planning to produce EU-flower labelled products and the reply was:

Yes, if somebody wants to buy it

EH thought that TheDanish Eco-label Secretariathas the responsibility to make thelabel known by the consumers. This effort has not been sufficient so far:

They have just made a campaign about the flower. I dont

know if you saw it but I certainly didnt.


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EH believed that Danish consumers have seen the EU-flower but do not know what itstands for.

The most wanted environmental label among consumers in Denmark is Eco-Texaccording to EH. However, this assumption seemed to be the result of a process of

elimination as the other labels were expected to be less known by people. Eco-Tex isnot believed to be especially wellknown. EH beliefs that one of the reasons why therehas been tendency to a decline in proportion of certified cotton products since themillennium could be that there are so many different labels that the consumers can notfind their way around them. They dont know what to look for.

The final products ofMrup cotton products are T-shirts, blouses, underwear andsocks. Most of the textileMrup produces is sold to Danish companies, which eitherproduces the final products or sell it to other countries.

To sum up the findings from this interview:Mrup assumes that consumers mainlyhave personal reasons for buying certified cotton products. Prize and lack ofknowledge about the different certification labels are pointed out as the mostimportant barriers for consumers to purchase these products. Mrup has not made,and is not familiar with any investigation about consumers motivation concerningcertified cotton products.

4.3.2 Villy Dyhr

Villy Dyhr is Director at theDanish Consumer Council and a member of no less than14 committees at ministry level. He has followed and participated in the politicaldebate about organic products during the last decade. The consumers of organiccotton products can, according to Villy Dyhr, be grouped into three groups: thedevoted, the conscious, and the majority. The devoted were the first ones to buyorganic cotton products and ecology is their lifestyle - they want to save to world. Theconscious group buys organically mainly because they think the products contains less

chemicals, has a higher quality or is better for them and especially their children. Themajority group might occasionally buy some organic product, mainly organic milk,eggs and other articles, which are produced in big quantities.

A shift from save the world to what is best for me and my children has beenobserved to gradually take place from 1995 to 2000. This can according to Villy Dyhrbe explained by the conscious joining the organic movement. Villy Dyhr is notfamiliar with any investigation examining the consumers motivation for buyingorganic cotton. The previous grouping of consumers into three groups, as well as, the

shift from save the world to what is best for me has Villy Dyhr based on informationfrom the Information Centre for Environment & Health and the public debate. Thecentre has a telephone service where Danish consumers can call and ask questions


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about e.g. environmental labelling. The previous conclusions are based on the type ofquestions received at the centre.When eco-labelling and certification was introduced, the general idea was to establisha small group of more environmental friendly businesses, which would state anexample and lead the development in a more environmental friendly direction. The

Danish government invested millions based on this idea and it worked in thebeginning, but now the market for certified products has stabilized at a marginal level.The consumers do not ask for certification and thus the companies are not willing topay the higher cost. Many organic products are therefore sold unlabelled today. Thegeneral Danish consumers have faith in products, believe that the production methodis acceptable and think that it is the governments responsibility to define standardsand supervise them, according to Villy Dyhr.

Villy Dyhr do not see government rules as the way to better production standards,

since it is a very slow process and todays free trade agreements makes it difficult tohave national rules. He thinks that something might be doable on EU level, but thatthe market forces mainly have to deal with it. He sees three alternatives:

Information campaigns showing the worst cases, so that the worst products getblack labelled, a little like most people still associates Shell with oil pollutionin Nigeria.

Retail trade chains stating that they only sell acceptable products and sortingout the worst ones, since the consumers can never know which products are

good and bad. A simpler certification process where some products just are labelled better,

without putting demands on the third decimal, so that a mass market forcertified products can be created and the big effects dealt with.

In relation to the objectives of this study, the most important findings in this interviewwas that Villy Dyhr has a good insight in this subject, but has never heard about anyresearch concerning it. According to him few consumers are motivated by altruisticreasons, more are motivated by personal reasons, but most people are not motivated at

all. The main reason is that people have a strong confidence in the system and believethat hazardous and environmental damaging products are automatically sorted out.

4.3.3 Informal Interview

Kansas Denmark A/S:

Kansas has the EU-flower label on many of their products, but most often thecompany chooses not to register the products as certified. This is simply because thereis a cost per unit and the costumers do not want to pay the extra prize caused by the

label. Eco-labels are of no interest to operational workers. Torben Andersen fromKansas Denmark suggest that the best way to motivate consumers to buy organiccotton products is present the background story of the cotton producers and their


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environmenst. Staff member Torben Andersen refers toNovotex as the most importantcertified company in Denmark working with cotton textiles.

TheDanish Eco-label SecretariatThe Nordic Eco-label and the EU-Flower are the only official eco-labels for textiles in

Denmark. The effect of the campaign for promotion of the Flower is evaluated byrandom phone calls to people in EU. Results will not become public until December.

Power Konfektion:Power Konfektion produce cotton products with the EU-Flower certification. The staffat Power Konfektion is not familiar with any investigation about consumersmotivation for buying organic or certified cotton products. Only 7-8 % of totalturnover is sold in Denmark.


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5 Discussion and Reflections

5.1 Reflection on the methods

During the research process we gained essential experience with the different methods.We found that some approaches worked better than others and we realized that theoryand practice could differ in some ways. In the following each of the three methodsand our approaches are discussed.

5.1.1 The Questionnaire Method

The methods applied in the questionnaire were tested before conducting the fieldwork. The fine-tuning paid off in terms of very few questions from the respondentsabout how to complete the questionnaire. The matrix and Likert-scale questions

functioned well, as these were fast and easy to fill out, but still provided us withdetailed information. In the design phase assumptions were made that the respondentswould not read the instructions properly about circling out the most importantstatement. This turned out to be true, but because it was taken into account in thedesign phase, errors were avoided in the field. The eco-label page was coloured andthe respondents found it almost entertaining to complete.

It was quite a task finding sufficient respondents, because people usually are verysuspicious towards people standing on the street with a clipboard. They are generally

not interested in being asked about all sorts of banalities, but as soon as they heard oursurvey included the word organic, almost everybody volunteered. This could indicatethat the word organic in the public has a very positive sound to it, having a greaterscope than just a commercial purpose.

During the process of getting questionnaires in the field, several informal interviewsoccurred between us and the customers, shop employees, and shop owners. This wasvery interesting, because these off-the-record conversations delivered differentviews and opinions about the problems and dilemmas concerning the whole organic

textile issue. We did not gather or use this information, but for future reference itwould be worthwhile to be prepared for being able to note and use it to sophisticatethe overall picture. A good example of one of our informal interviews was ourdiscussion with the owner of a shop carrying organic textiles for children and adults.We had a very constructive dialogue about the difficulties in selling organic clothesfor adults and drawbacks of organic products. After having sold children clothesexclusively, he last year decided to sell organic clothes for adults as well. This was avery limited success, as the demand was almost non-existing, and now he was aboutto shut the adult section down. This information was very interesting in relation to our

research as a possible explanation why children clothes dominated as the mostconsumed organic textile.


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5.1.2 The PRA methods

One of the advantages of using PRA-methods such as ranking, scoring and par-wiseranking is that these methods are relatively fast to do for the respondents. This means

that people might be more willing to participate, since they know that they do nothave to spend a lot of time answering different questions and reading a lot of text. Themethods showed to be a good way to investigate what motives people find importantfor buying clothes made of organic cotton. If time had allowed us it would have beeninteresting first to do the PRA methods and then, when having seen the trends in themotivations from the PRA results, we should have made the questionnaires. This waywe could have used the information gained by PRA to make better questions.

A drawback we did not correct in the use of ranking was that additionally a

motivation ranking could have been made where it was possible to give the samenumber to two or more reasons a participant might find equally motivating. Doingthat would help decrease the significant errors regarding equally valued points givendifferent ranks just for the sake of the method itself (Fielding et al, 1998).

The ranking and scoring could have been done for couples or triples as well whichwould enable person triangulation. This could have shown us if the participant wereinclined to respond differently that had they been together with someone or alone.However we were not able to encounter any couples at the site where the PRAexercise was performed. All the consumers we met were shopping alone.

PRA methods were originally invented to be used in rural areas. In the rural setting itcan be assumed that there is a higher consensus between people than there would bein the urban setting, where people are more individualistic. In the context of thisresearch question we had to use PRA in an urban setting and it must therefore be keptin mind that PRA does not give a reflection of the urban community but just theparticipants of the exercise.

5.1.3 The Interview Method

Throughout the interview process we gained experience with both positive andnegative aspects of using interview as a method. Furthermore we gained knowledgeon how to improve interview procedure in order to avoid some of the negative aspectsof interviews. This is described in the following:

Pre-testing was found to be very useful and effective especially concerning theinterview guide and the non-verbal behaviour. On the video from the pre-test the

negative effect of lack of confidentiality with the questions was seen. The interviewersometimes had to look in the guide when asking a question. After this exercise it wasunderstood that questions had to be remembered by the interviewer so that eye contact


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could be maintained. During the actual interview the guide was not used at all becausethe interview took form of a natural dialog and almost all questions functioned asprobes following up on the said. Only in the very end of the interview the list wasused to check if all the planned questions had been asked. It was also found useful ifthe second person asked two or three questions in between so that the main

interviewer got some space for thinking.

During this study many different approaches were tried out in the attempt to persuadekey informants into participating in a telephone interview. Clearly the experiencesgained are the following:

The informal conversation can be very informative and maybe even morereliable than an arranged interview.

A very brief presentation of the project followed by a specific question

directed to the person gives a better chance of participation in the rest of theinterview than an e-mail sent out prior to the phone-call.

If much effort is made on research and preparation for a single specific keyinformant or organization the time used is lost if the informant rejects aninterview.

Hence the background research prior to the interview should be on the topicrather than a specific organization or company.

Apart from this it was discovered that it as an interviewer it is difficult to avoid

manipulating the interviewee. Maybe this is due to the fact that many people arenaturally always looking for right and wrong answers and if questions are not keptcompletely neutral then the answers will tent to be biased. Some questions in thetelephone interview withJ. Mrup Stof ApS were later identified as manipulating andas a result the interviewee agreed upon each statement. These questions and answersare not taken into consideration in the result chapter.

In general it was found that the semi-structured interview as a method gave in-depthinformation and revealed themes and points that were not thought of. The results

reflected attitudes and opinions rather than facts. The lack of quantitative analysismade is difficult to draw general conclusions.

5.2 Reflections on the results

During this study it was found that in Denmark very little or no empirical data isavailable on consumers motivation for purchasing certified organic cotton. Ourquestionnaire session is limited to consumers living in East Zealand. If a generalconclusion is to made for all consumers in Denmark a telephone survey with a closed

questionnaire should be applied. Participants should be chosen from a random list andthe sample size should be large enough to prove or disapprove a certain hypothesiswith statistical significance.


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The results that we gathered from the questionnaire and showed that lack of pesticidesis the main motivation. The PRA findings support this if we consider care aboutnatural resources to include lack of pesticides. Lack of pesticides can; however, beseen as both care of natural resources and avoiding pesticide residuals, i.e. both

altruistic and personal. In general alternatives with altruistic nature seams to beapproximately equally important as personal ones. We should have tried to ask ifconsumers buy organic textiles for altruistic or personal reasons more directly on ourhigher abstraction level, in order to answer our hypothesis. Another very unfortunatemistake was that we did not have exactly the same alternatives in the questionnaireand PRA. The following sections will provide a discussion on the results obtainedfrom the different methods.

5.2.1 Reflections on the Questionnaire Results

The data derived from the questionnaires showed that the consumption of clothes andother organic products was determined more by the mindset of individuals, rather thansocial status, gender or age. In other words, the organic habits were independent ofsocio-economic relations, but were driven by the beliefs of the costumers.

Before carrying out the fieldwork, we were aware, that we had a limited target group.It turned out to be even narrower than expected, but the distribution may be

representative for organic clothes consumers. As we collected the data, an evidentpattern arose even before we analyzed the data more than half of the respondentswere 30-40 years old women buying organic clothes for their children. We consideredthis to be a bias, because it seemed as our sampling only reached a fraction of peoplebuying organic textiles. Though, since we sampled all the Copenhagen based storesselling organic clothes and the main organic textile being sold is children clothes, weconsider our sample as representative for the scope and size of our research

The mindset of the individual consumer can be divided into personal or altruistic

motivations for buying organic textiles. This was investigated in question 9 in thequestionnaire (Appendix B), where people in general chose organic textiles mostly forpersonal reasons (design, price, quality, lifestyle), but their main criteria were theambiguous answer no pesticides (Appendix C, question 9). It is an ambiguous answerin that sense, that it can be altruistic if the consumer cares about the local environmentof the production area, but also personal for not wearing clothes with chemicalresidues. The fact that children clothes is the most requested clothes, indicates, thatthe concern is more about allergy and health (personal motivation) than care for thelocal environment in the production area (altruistic motivation).

We find it peculiar, that most people answered that they often bought products witheco-label, but their ability to recognise and name the labels were for the most people


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scarce. The majority of respondents knew the European flower and the Nordic swan,which may be explained by the more frequent consumption of groceries compared toclothes carrying an eco-label. Another explanation is that the eco-label jungle simplyis too opaque to the typical consumer, and it only is granted the few to know. Thefigure on organic habits shows that milk and eggs are the most frequently consumed

products, whereas organic clothes are much less commonly bought. We ascribe it tobeing much easier to behave like an environmental concerning consumer when buyingorganic food products available in every grocery store than buying organic textilesonly found in specialized shops.

5.2.2 Reflections on the PRA Results

It was found that the highest motivation for all three methods was Concern for NaturalResources (for the scoring exercise this first place was shared with Environmental

concerns). For scoring and ranking the top three motivations are all mainly ofaltruistic nature, hence indicating that personal motivation was not the determiningfactor.

Two important things are reflected in the results; firstly the method that was used andsecondly the actual set up and wording thereof. The latter is assumed to be theprimary cause of the impersonal results. The participants interpreted the categoryHealth only as motivation if they in fact had allergies due to our suggested of allergiesas an example of a health related reason to purchase organic. Nevertheless, other

personal motivations, such as Quality and Fashion were also ranked just above havingno motivation (Coincidence), which indicated a tendency away from personalmotivations.

One interesting participant will be illuminated as an example of the contradictions anddetails that are possible to discover by PRA methods. Participant (#3) was veryinteresting because she provided large variations within the three methods and hencehad misunderstood the categories. For the scoring exercise 2 points were only given tostatement C: organic clothes are fashionable, where after an extra comment was made

under other motivations the it is smart and nice but expensive. Clearly #3 didnot think that fashionable was considered in the same category as smart. The samewas the case for the ranking as Fashion/Smart was second last ranked. In the rankingthe third last motivation was Health comparing to the final exercise of pair-wiseranking in which #3 by far gave Health priority and the three motivations of Concernfor natural resources, Environmental concerns and Lifestyle/Beliefs, were all placed atthe way bottom. These motivations had in the scoring and ranking all been the topthree motivations. The obvious contradictions just stated above clearly illustrate thecomplexity that is possible to unveil by PRA methods as well as how important the

design is.


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Many correlations and attempted explanations can be made between the responses andthe participants. An example of this is that one of the participants (#2) doing pair-wiseranking gave Health as her main motivation but explained that this was because shewas buying clothes for her baby. She said that if she had been shopping clothes forherself Health would not have been the main motivation for purchasing clothes made

of organic cotton. Then she would have been more interested in whether the clotheswere fashionable or not. Due to this information we find that the location probablyhave given a bias since some parents tends to be more worried about health andallergies in relations to their children than when shopping clothes for themselves.

We became aware of another important possible bias when addressing participant #1 agrandmother with a baby stroller. In the scoring and the ranking she stated that Healthwas a main priority. While filling out the PRA schedules she was very eager todiscuss the right answer with us. She thought that some motivations might be more

acceptable than others and wanted us to help her decide. This is very interesting interms of how we as facilitators accidentally can come to manipulate with theparticipants. If the participants feel that some answers are more right than others orthat certain answers will make us happy then this will immediately give a bias.

Another bias is our choice of wording. Firstly as mentioned above it is important thatthe sentences are precise and easily understood and secondly some words might havea negatively sound.

All in all the results obtained from the PRA-methods showed that the people we hadcontact with were aware of the fact that they buy clothes made from organic cotton. Itshould be noted that there might be other motivations for buying clothes made fromorganic cotton material that we have not considered, but none of our respondents saidthey were missing a category.

5.2.3 Reflections on the Interview results

During the interviews some important questions about increase and decrease in the

demand of organic certified cotton products over time were not answered. Thisinformation is essential in the interpretation of consumers motivation. However dueto time constraint within this project and the limited number of certified companies inDenmark, these questions were not followed up in extra interviews.

Finally it should be noted that none of the interviewed were familiar with results fromany actual surveys on consumers motivations. Most of the information gathered inthese interviews and informal conversations are results of peoples own opinion ratherthan the opinion of Danish consumers in general. Much factual knowledge on Danish

certified cotton production is still lacking. Considering the lack of empiricalknowledge on this specific subject interviews have not been considered aninformative method in this study.


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5.2.4 General discussion

The main idea of the study was to apply the three methods: questionnaire, PRA andinterviews. This part was successful. We have examined the methods usability and

appropriateness for different types of investigations and how they can be used tosupport each other. We have also made several important mistakes as for examplebelieving we as researchers would be able to make an accurate grouping of ouralternatives on the second level of abstraction and examine our hypothesis.

Except from the story telling, the PRA ended up more like a mini questionnaire than aqualitative social survey. We ascribe this to the study was carried out on individualurban people with no social relation - PRA was initially developed for people living ina community in rural conditions.

If we were to conduct the same study again then we would first use the interviewmethod to get a much deeper knowledge of what is known today. It is a fast, easy andgood method to get in-depth knowledge from key informants. It is howeverproblematic to find and identify these persons with wide knowledge on the topic.Secondly, would we use the PRA to design better questions for the questionnairethrough the use of a small group of organic consumers. This would enable us todesign the questionnaire more specific minded on narrowing in the research question.Finally, we could use the PRA to get in-depth information about interesting aspects

raised by the questionnaire.


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6 Conclusion

In order to answer the research question (What is the primary motivation of the

Danish consumers for buying textiles made from certified organically produced and processed cotton) following conclusions were drawn from the three methods:questionnaire survey, Participatory Rural Appraisal and interviews.

The questionnaire indicated that the lack of pesticides in the production oforganic textiles was the primary motivation, at least among the targetgroup ofour purposive sample. The second most important motivation was found to behealth concerns. These findings are only representative for organic textileconsumers in Copenhagen.

We intended to get in-depth information and verify the questionnaire findingsthrough the use of the PRA but this was not possible based on our results.

The entire interview process revealed that in Denmark only very little isknown about consumers motivations for purchasing organic orenvironmentally friendly certified textiles. None of the six differentinstitutions and companies asked was familiar with any investigations orstudies on this kind of consumers. The interview with Villy Dyhr reviled that

Danish consumers mainly have personal motivations for buying organic andcertified cotton textiles, but this is a personal statement by Villy Dyhr ratherthan a fact.

We could not clearly reject or approve the hypothesis (The consumers motivation forbuying organic cotton textiles is mainly personal). It is therefore most appropriate tointerpret it as if both altruistic and personal reasons are approximately equallyimportant. We thought that it would be possible to easily categorize our alternativesinto personal or altruistic, but we found that people interpreted them so differently

that we must conclude that this is not the case. The questionnaire answers, however,have a tendency towards personal reasons being the consumers main motivation.This agrees with the information we gained from the interview with Villy Dyhr.


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ReferencesBabbie, E. (2002). The practice of social research. Wadsworth Thompson Learning,Australia.

Elzakker, Bo van (1999). Organic Cotton Production. In: Organic Cotton. Editor:Myers, Dorothy & Stolton, Sue. Intermediate Technology Publications Ltd. London,UK.

Fielding, W.J, Riley, J & Oyejola, B.A (1998). Ranks are statistics: some advice fortheir interpretation. PLA notes 33. pp35-39.

Fletcher, K. & Waayer (1999). Cotton textile processing lifecycle and design. In:Organic Cotton. Editor: Myers, Dorothy & Stolton, Sue. Intermediate TechnologyPublications Ltd. London, UK.

Garry, V.F. (2004). Pesticides and children. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2004 Jul15;198(2):152-63.

Gillham, B. (2000). The research Interview. Continuum, London, UK.

Henriksen, C. (2004). Tnk hvad Blomster kan gre [online], Dansk Standard,Miljmrkesekretariatet, October 2004. Available on internet:http://www.ds.dk/2440,1. Last visited on the 1.11.2004.

Lampkin, N. (1990). Organic Farming. Permanent Press, UK.

Mikkelsen, B (1995). Methods for Development Work and Research. A Guide forPractitioners. Sage Publications. New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London.

Myers, Dorothy (1999). Organic Cotton. A more sustainable approach. In: OrganicCotton. Editor: Myers, Dorothy & Stolton, Sue. Intermediate Technology PublicationsLtd. London, UK.

Padel, S. (2003). Personal Communication at University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Parrott, N. and van Elzakker, B. (2003). Organic and like-minded movements inAfrica - Development and status. International Federation of Organic Agriculture

Movements, Agro Eco, Netherlands.

Schafer, K.S. and Kegley, S.E. (2002). Persistent toxic chemicals in the US foodsupply. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2002 Nov;56(11):813-7.

SEMC (2004): The Swedish Environmental Management Councilhttp://www.eku.nu/criterion/criterion.asp?critID=71&info=EnvInfo

Ton, Peter (2002a). Organic cotton production in sub-Saharan Africa: the need forscaling-up, A report for PAN UKs Pesticides Poverty and Livelihoods project.Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK), London. ISBN: 0-9521656-5-1.


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Ton, Peter (2002b). The International market for organic cotton and eco-textiles. p.258 In: Robert Thompson (compiler), Proceedings of the 14th IFOAM Organic WorldCongress. Canadian Organic Growers, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Willer, Helga and Minou Yussefi (2004) (Eds.). The World of Organic Agriculture -Statistics and Emerging Trends - 2004. International Federation of Organic

Agriculture Movements, Bonn, Germany. ISBN 3-934055-33-8.http://www.soel.de/inhalte/publikationen/s/s_74.pdf


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Appendix A Research Process LFA matrix

Research ProcessLogical Framework Matrix

02.12.2004

Project Elements Indicators AssumptionsGlobal Objective:Gain insights in methods in naturalresearch management for futureusage.

Pass the course. Everyone in our group feels thathe/she has learned the methods.

That we are able to apply themethods and learn them by doingour research.

Immediate Objective:A good 20-25 pages report iswritten by the 8.12.2004.The reportanswers the following question:

What is the primary motivation ofthe consumers for buying textilesmade from certified organicallyproduced and processed cotton.

The report is handed in on the8.12.2004.

The report receives a good grade.

A report can be produced based onthe answers we have got, using themethods bellow.

Outputs: A synopsis. An abstract. An introduction. A section about project planning. A chapter about the ParticipatoryAppraisal technique.

A chapter about thequestionnaire. A chapter about the threeinterviews.

Every method chapter shouldcontain: theory about the method,experiment description andresults.

A discussion chapter. A conclusions chapter. A perspectives chapter. A Literature list.

A 2-3 pages synopsis (5.10).An abstract (7.12).An introduction (30.9).A chapter about the ParticipatoryAppraisal technique (24.11).A chapter about the questionnaire(24.11).

A chapter about the threeinterviews (24.11).A theory section for each method(4.10).

A discussion chapter (1.12).A conclusions chapter (1.12).A perspectives chapter (1.12).A Literature list (23.9).

The quality of the questionnaireanswers, interviews and PRA aresuch that we can answer ourresearch question.

Activities: Discussion of Research ProcessLF matrix.

Literature search. Writing ofsynopsis. Collection of data by use ofParticipatory Appraisal

technique. Conduction ofquestionnaire. Three interviews. Theory and implementation basedon existing literature. Work documentation.

Research Process LF matrixapproved (15.9).

Literature list (23.9).Written synopsis (5.10).Participatory appraisal, interviewand questionnaire plan (27.10).

Participatory Appraisal results(10.11).

Questionnaire answers (10.11).Three interviews (10.11).

Every group member commits tothe project.

We can find a suitable targetgroup for the questionnaire.

We find people who are willing toparticipate in a PRA.

We find three suitableinterviewees.


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Appendix B: Questionnaire

Vi er 6 studerende fra Den Kgl. Veterinr- og Landbohjskole (KVL) i Kbenhavn, somgennem det flgende sprgeskema vil undersge danske forbrugeres kologiske vaner

i forbindelse med kb af tj og andre tekstiler.

Dine svar vil blive brugt i studiemssigt henseende i en rapport om emnet.Resultaterne bliver behandlet anonymt og i et ikke kommercielt jemed. Hvis detnskes, kan rapporten rekvireres ved at udfylde e-mailadresse til sidst i sprge-skemaet.

Tidsforbruget for udfyldelse af skemaet er ca. 5 minutter.

kologi generelt

Hvilke egenskaber eller kvaliteter forbinder du med kologiske produkter? (St

gerne flereX og st om den vigtigste)

Dyrevelfrd

Ingen brug af sprjtemidler i produktionen

Hj kvalitet

Fair Trade

Ingen medicinrester i produktet

Bedre smag Gode arbejdsforhold under fremstillingen

Ingen brug af kunstgdning i produktionen

Andet:

Kber du produkter baseret p om varen har et miljmrke? (St tX)

Altid

Ofte Af og til

Sjldent

Aldrig

Stoler du p at kravene for miljmrkning altid bliver opfyldt? (St tX)

Ja

Nej Ved ikke


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Kender du flgende miljmrker? (Hvis ja, navngiv mrket og angiv om det erkologisk eller ej)

Ja Navn:

kologisk

Ikke-kologisk

Nej

Ja Navn: kologisk Ikke-kologisk

Nej


Nej


Nej


Nej


Nej


Nej


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Indkb

Hvor tit vlger du kologisk indenfor flgende varegrupper? (St t X i hverrkke)

Altid Ofte Af og til Sjldent Aldrig

Mlkeprodukter

g

Kd

Kornprodukter

Grntsager/Frugt

Kosmetik

Tj/Tekstiler Juletrer

Andet:

kologisk tj og tekstiler

Hvor kber du kologisk tj/tekstiler? (St gerne flere X)

Specialforretninger

Over Internettet

Supermarked

Postordre

Andet:

Hvilke typer tj/tekstiler kber du? (St gerne flere X)

Undertj

Modetj

Brnetj

Arbejdstj

Hndklder

Lagner

Andet:


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Af hvilke materialer kber du kologisk tj/tekstiler? (St gerne flere X)

Hr

Silke

Bomuld

Uld

Hamp

Andet:

Hvilke kriterier vlger du kologisk tj ud fra? (St gerne flereX og st omden vigtigste)

Mode

Pris

Kvalitet

Helbredsgrunde

Livsstil/Overbevisning

Mindre miljbelasting i produktion

Gode arbejdsforhold i produktionen

Fair Trade Andet:

Hvad skal der til for at f dig til at ge dit forbrug at kologisk tj? (St gerne

flereX og st om den vigtigste)

Strre udvalg

Lavere pris Bedre kvalitet

Smartere design

Mere information om varen

Andet:


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Bliver kologisk tj markedsfrt godt nok? (St tX)

Ja

Nej

Ved ikke

Hvis nej, hvor skal der efter din mening gres en ekstra indsats? (St gerne flereX og st om den vigtigste)

Mere reklame i de store medier (tv, aviser m.m.)

Mere offentlig oplysning

Mere oplysning/reklame i tjbutikkerne Andet:


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Personlige data:

Kn: M K

Alder:


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Appendix C: Results from questionnaire Graphs

Question 2

Frequency of respondents buying products with an eco-label

Always Often Occationally Seldom Never

Percen

t

0

10

20

30

40

50

Question 1

Criterias of organic products

Anima

lwelfare

Nouseofpesticid

esQu

ality

Fairtr

ade

Nouseofm

edicin

e

Betterta

ste

Betterw

orking

condition

s

Nouseoffertilizer

0,0

0,2

0,4

0,6

0,8

1,0

Criteria

Main criteria


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Question 5

Organic habits

Milk

Eggs

Meat

Cereals

Vegetables

Cosmetic

s

Clothe

s

Christma

strees

Percent

0

20

40

60

80

100

Always

Often

Occationally

Seldom

Never

Question 4

Recognition of eco-labels

Theflower

Europ

eane

colab

el

Demeter

Nordicswan

Goodenviron

mentalch

oice

Krav(EKO) Sk

al

Persons

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Know the eco- label

Know the name

Know if it is an organic label or not

Do not know the label


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Question 8

Organic textile materials

Flax Silk Cotton Wool Hemp

Percent

0

20

40

60

80

100

Question 7

Organic textile consumption

Underwe

ar

Designer

wear

Childr

enclothe

s

Workw

ear

Towels

Sheets

Percent

0

20

40

60

80

100


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Question 9

Criterions for buying organic clothes

Design

Price

Quality

Health

Lifestyle

Nope

sticid

es

Good

workin

gcondition

es

FairT

rade

Numberofpositiveanswers

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Criteria

Main criteria

Personal data

Age distribution of respondents

Age

6

5

Num

berofpersons

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14


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Personal data

Education

ufagl fagl kort mellem lang and

YData

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18


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Appendix D: Ranking and Scoring

Point givning (Scoring exercise)

Giv venligst flgende udsagn numrene fra 1-5. Tallet 5 gives til det udsagn du er mestenig i osv. Du m gerne give det samme tal til flere udsagn

A. Jeg er selv/eller personen jeg kber ind for er allergisk.B. Jeg mener at dyrkere af kologisk bomuld har bedre arbejdsvilkr end

konventionelle bomuldsdyrkere.C. Jeg mener at tekstiler fra kologisk dyrket bomuld er af hjere kvalitet.D. Jeg vil gerne afhjlpe miljproblemer relaterede til brug pesticider.E. Jeg synes at kologisk tj er moderne.F. Jeg mener at afgrder skal dyrkes s bredygtigt som muligt.G. Jeg mener at afgrder skal dyrkes uden brug af kemikalier.

H. Jeg vil gerne mindske forureningen af grundvandet fra bearbejdning afbomuld.I. Jeg har ikke overvejet at det indkbte tj er kologisk det er tilfldigt.J. Jeg er generelt bekymret for verdens naturressourcer.K. Andre grunde til at jeg kber kologisk. Uddyb venligst:

St i Rkkeflge (Ranking exercise)

Pointgiv venligst flgende 8 grunde til at kbe kologisk med tallene fra 1 8.(1 = vigtigst 8 = mindst vigtig). Du m kun give det samme tal en gang.

Helbredsmssige rsager (f.eks. allergi)ModeLivsstil/overbevisningBedre arbejdsvilkr for bomuldsdyrkerneKvalitetenMiljrelaterede grundeTilfldigtGenerel omtanke for verdens ressourcer

Tusind tak for hjlpen I har netop hjulpet 6 studerende fra Den Kgl. Veterinr-og Landbohjskole lidt nrmere frdiggrelsen af et projekt om

forbrugertendenser inden for kologi.


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AppendixE:Pair-wiseRank

ing

Ihvertomru

brikbedesduudfyldehvilkenafdetogrunde,dervarvigtigst,dadukbtekologisk.

Helbred

(H)

Mode/

Smart

(MS)

Livsstil/

Overbevisning

(LO)

Arbejds-

vilkr

(A)

Kvalitet

(K)

Miljhensy

n

(M)

Tilfldig

(T)

Omtanke

fornatur-

ressourcer

(O)

Helbred

(H)

Mode/

Smart

(MS)

Livsstil/

Overbevisning

(LO)

Arbejds-

vilkr

(A)

Kvalitet

(K)

Miljhensyn

(M)

Tilfldig

(T)

Omtanke

fornatur-

ressourcer

(O)


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Appendix F: Semi-strukturered interview withForbrugerrdet (in Danish)

Personligt interview 45 min. Med bndoptagelse og referent.

Anmodning om interview via e-mailSted: Forbrugerrdet, Fiolstrdet 17Tid: Fredag kl 10.00

Interviewperson: Villy Dyhr (Afdelingschef- politisk afdeling)

(bekrftet)

Om Villy Dyhr:

Er cand. scient. (tidl. miljkonsulent i KPMG)

Folketingskandidat for SF (lborg st)SF hovedbestyrelse, SF forretningsudvalgKalder sig forbruger- lobbyistSidder bl.a. i flg. udvalg:

Ministeriet for Familie- og Forbrugeranliggender:o Forbrugerstyrelsen (suppleant)o Forbrugerklagenvnets forretningsudvalg

Ministeriet for Fdevarer, Landbrug og Fiskeri:o Det Rdgivende Fdevareudvalg

Justitsministeriet:o

Advokatnvnet (suppleant) Miljministerieto EU-specialudvalget vedr. miljsprgsml (suppleant)o Miljordning for biler( er ikke med i Miljmrkenvnet !!)

Ministeriet for Videnskab, Teknologi og Udvikling:o E-kredseno Teknologirdets reprsentantskab

konomi- og Erhvervsministeriet:o Konkurrencerdet (suppleant)o Bestyrelsen for Garantifonden for Indskydere og Investorero Det Handelspolitiske Specialudvalgo Stormrdet (suppleant)o Finanstilsynet: Det Finansielle Virksomhedsrdo Pensionsmarkedsrdet (suppleant)

Bemrkninger: Probes skal i denne sammenhng forsts som opklarende tillgssprgsml

der dykker dybere ned i emnet. (formuleres ofte under selve interviewet) Prompts er stikord/ pmindelser som kan hjlpe den interviewede videre hvis

han/hun gr i st eller mister den rde trd.


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SPRGSML PROBE PROMPT

Hvad tnker du hvis jeg sigerkologiske bomuldsprodukter?

Hvordan definererdanske forbrugere

kologiskbomuld?

ko-fdevare Nonko- food. Er der forskel?

I hvor stor udstrkning harforbrugerrdet beskftiget sig medkologiske eller miljvenligetekstiler?

Har der vretklager?

dialog meddanskeproducenter ellerforhandlere afko-bomuldstekstiler?

Hvordan vil du karakterisere entypisk dansk forbruger der vlgerkologisk certificerede bomuldsprodukter?

Hvad bygger dudisse antagelserp?

Ung/ gammel, mdre,rige, fattige, hjtuddannede/ lavtuddannedeDKAndet

Hvorfor vlger nogle forbrugere atkbe kologiske eller miljvenligebomuldsprodukter?

Hvad lgges dermest vgt p?

sundhed, miljet, livsstil,mode, kvalitet, pris,sociale-/ arbejdsmssige

forholdUnder blomst-mrke kampag

Organic Cloths

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