BUS602: Marketing Management

In this second phase, the target group (consumer segment, in our case) matters little because rather than identifying notable differences, our analysis highlights mostly similarities. The most noteworthy of these are the time that t-shirts and jeans are kept, the frequency of wearing, and laundry behaviors. Nevertheless, this consumption phase warrants some discussion because of life cycle assessment experts' disagreement over whether it has a significant or negligible impact on the environment. Given that a longer product life is generally preferable to a shorter one, retaining jeans and t-shirts for 3–4 years is a more positive outcome than the 2.2 years reported by Gracey and Moon. In fact, all five of our consumer segments indicate the same period, which is particularly surprising given that Segments 1 and 3 purchase primarily budget brands while Segment 5 purchases casual/medium and premium brands. This finding not only contradicts the common environmental literature assumption (e.g.) that premium brand clothing (assumedly of higher quality and durability) is kept longer but also implies that any recommendation to purchase higher quality clothing for environmental reasons will be ineffective if consumers do not simultaneously reduce their overall consumption or use the items for a longer period. In addition, although we are unable to distinguish whether the indicated 3–4 years reflects the active wearing of clothes or includes passive storage, we do know that the 36 to 48 times that both t-shirts and jeans are generally worn over their product lives exceeds the anticipated 22 times for t-shirts but falls drastically short of the anticipated 200 times for jeans. Based on a maximum four-year lifetime for jeans and t-shirts, the number of wears, and the number of wears before washing, we estimate a total of 22 washing cycles for a t-shirt and around six washing cycles for a pair of jeans at an average temperature of 40 °C. Whereas washing 1 kg clothes at 40 °C consumes 0.21 kWh of energy, tumble drying it requires 3–4 times as much energy, making it the most interesting maintenance practice from an environmental perspective. In our study, in line with earlier research, around 30% of consumers use a tumble dryer to dry their t-shirts and jeans. (It is worth noting that the use of tumble dryers is much higher in the U.S. (above 80%) compared to the European countries (between ca. 12% in Poland and ca. 20% in Germany and Sweden)) Although the environmental impact of this practice is rather low compared to impacts in the production, purchase, and discard phases, for future interventions targeting the use phase, the behavior with the highest potential to reduce impact across all consumer segments is the widespread use of energy gobbling tumble dryers.