Analyzing the behavior of consumers of ecologically correct products: the case of rice products certified with IRGA’s environmental label

Abstract

Lifestyles, consumption and industrial production have, over the years, been supported by the indiscriminate use of environmental resources, harming the ecosystems and jeopardizing environmental quality. The need to minimize these impacts gave rise to clean production systems, consisting in production processes geared towards preserving raw materials and energy, eliminating toxic wastes and polluting emissions and, with regard to products, the idea is to reduce their negative impacts along their life cycle. The rice production chain was one of the pioneers in the certification of eco-friendly rice products, in the production of energy from rice husk, and in the use of cleaner technologies. However, what was not known was the level of information of the consumers regarding these practices and the development of products certified with the environmental seal. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to characterize the behavior of the consumers who have opted for ecologically correct products in the municipality of de São Gabriel (RS). One hundred and fifty-five consumers were interviewed, in five supermarkets in the town of São Gabriel (RS). The area planted to rice in this municipality reaches approximately 29,000 hectares (IBGE, 2009) and one rural holding certified with IRGA’s environmental Seal in the 2009/10 crop year. The findings of this survey will be a good help for defining the type of packaging for the rice certified with IRGA’s environmental seal, for selecting the retail outlets responsible for distributing the product, for the communication strategies to be used and for defining the markets that are to absorb the certified final product.