Earth5R Research Article: Electrical Green Products: From A Consumer Perspective
Author Name: Shalok Balodi
Earth5R Sustainability ID: E5R683R5D38X709
School/Institute/ Affiliation: St Joseph’s Academy
Earth5R Guide/ Mentor: Saurabh Gupta
Publishing Platform: Earth5R Earth Journal (earth5r.org)
ABSTRACT
Green Products are an innovative solution to reduce environmental pollution and carbon footprint. With the green industry booming and current generations inclining to become more environmentally friendly and use sustainable infrastructure, it is essential to understand the sentiments and opinions of the general population toward green electrical products, since electrical appliances and commodities constitute more than 90% of the global power demand in 2021.
This study aims to ascertain the overall opinion regarding sustainable electric products and their quality based on specific parameters using pre-trained machine learning models. The results throw critical insight into the importance and weightage of the performance of a product about its overall sentiment and relative neutrality regarding other features. The study also demonstrated a sizeable majority of users willing to recommend green products in their societies.
Keywords: (green product marketing, aspect-based, analysis, solar products, consumer behavior, machine learning)
INTRODUCTION
Green products are” products that provide environmental, social, and economic benefits while simultaneously protecting the environment over their entire lifespans from manufacturing to disposal.” For this research, electrical green products are defined as “sustainable products involving the conversion or consumption of electrical energy.
According to Global Electricity Review 2020 by Ember, wind and solar energy reached a record high of accounting for 10 percent of total global energy consumption. Nevertheless, due to population growth and rapid industrialization, the consumption and demand for non-renewable sources such as coal and petroleum have also increased simultaneously, leading to an all-time high growth of 7% in carbon dioxide emission. The electricity sector is the major contributor to C02 emissions and is strategic to reducing global heating to less than 1.5 degrees.
The growth of other clean electricity sources has stalled with bioenergy posing the highest emission risks. The IEA’s 1.5-degree pathway shows wind and solar as the powerhouse of clean electricity, striving to become 40% of the world’s electricity by 2030, up from 10%. This equals 20% compound growth every year. In the last decade, these 2 energy types achieved an average of 20% per year, and although the growth rate had been falling, it recuperated in 2021. Hence it is essential to analyze customer opinions regarding electrical green products to identify key issues in their quality.
and communicate the findings to industrial executives and entrepreneurs to prevent discouragement towards electrical sustainability and simultaneously accelerate the proportion of eco-friendly products in the green industry. This will be achieved by the deployment of concepts of machine learning techniques and natural language processing, followed by observations based on data visualization.
LITERARY REVIEW:
Zainus and Salman (2017) concluded that environmental sustainability alongside individual accountability of consumers are the inspiring factors while lack of availability and little to no awareness regarding green products are detrimental to green markets. Consumers intended to buy green products regardless of background with the sole exception of educational background which exhibited a positive association with green product usage.
Jacob and Cherian (2012) established a framework introducing the concepts of green marketing and looked into the methods through which consumer behavior is associated with the idea of green marketing. They presented perceived seriousness, attitude, and responsibility towards the environment as the fundamental roots of their framework, which dictated consumer behavior towards green marketing and their purchasing patterns.
Shiv (2022) concluded that green marketing industries are still in their infancy and thereby face many challenges shortly. Customers may not trust the organizational pathway of green marketing and such reusable products and green innovations are expensive, therefore they can only be justified in the long vision of things. Another challenge is that companies engaging in non-cooperation green marketing often fail to persuade shareholders of the long-term benefits of green products vs short-term expenses.
Objectives:
• To ascertain the general perspective of the public and civilians towards electrical green products
• To recognize and distinguish which features of the products are more appealing to the general population and which features depict serious concerns and
inferior quality regarding their use
• To determine the likelihood of customers promoting or recommending their purchased green goods among their connections or online communities
Hypotheses:
1) The high costs of electrical green products are a major deterrence to their usage and popularity
2) Electrical green products might have negative responses due to their subpar performance and efficiency
3) Green products are more durable than traditional products in general and last longer
Methodology:
The research method involves the implementation of a primary machine learning model based on the concepts of logistic regression and natural language processing such as word vectorization and stop word removal. This model was given a manually collected dataset, of 760 reviews on solar and LED products and their ratings based on a 5-star classification system to train on, which was collected from e-commerce websites such as Amazon. The model possessed an accuracy of 85% For this research, we consider 4 and 5-starred reviews are “positive”, 3 stars as “neutral” and 1 and 2-starred as “negative”. The model was then supplied with a research dataset of 800 randomly collected reviews from consumers based in the U.S. and India on Amazon.
To conduct the feature-based analysis, a separate pre-trained machine-learning model was designed to classify reviews into 3 categories: “positive”, “neutral” and “negative”. This model was given the same research dataset of 800 reviews as input. The features considered in the research were:
• Performance
• Reliability and Usability
• Durability
• Affordability
• Likelihood of being recommended
The results from both models were then visualized with the help of Python libraries such as Matplotlib and Seaborn and Excel spreadsheets.
RESULTS
Chart 1 and Table 1 illustrate that a visible majority (50%) of the collected 800 samples exhibit a positive opinion regarding the overall quality of electrical green products, while only 30% reported negative sentiments. Only 20% of the reviews had a neutral opinion about green electrical products
Table 2 and Chart 2 demonstrate the sentiments of the general population toward various aspects of electrical green products. Out of all aspects, performance has the highest positive sentiment out of any other feature while public opinion regarding durability, reliability, and expense is mostly neutral.
As for the likelihood of the products being recommended, most reviewers did not specify their stand on the recommendations, while nearly an equal number of consumers were willing to recommend the products in their communities.
Hypothesis Testing:
1) The high costs of electrical green products are a major deterrence to their usage and popularity
Based on Table 2 and Chart 3, nearly 72 percent of the consumers perceived the price as “acceptable” for the available quality and features, while a prominently large portion (22%) of users cited the products as “inexpensive” for the available quality. Only 6% (51 reviewers) considered the price as “expensive or costly”. As many of the research samples were based on products designed for Christmas or Diwali celebrations, thereby establishing that people are willing to utilize green products for temporary arrangements, these are in direct contradiction with Shiv (2022) who concluded that green market technologies are expensive, and people might fail to see their utility shortly. Therefore, the cost of electrical green products is not a deterrence regarding their usage or popularity.
2) Electrical green products might have negative responses due to their subpar performance and efficiency.
Based on Table 2 and Chart 4, an overwhelming majority of the reviewers, nearly 70%, were positive about the performance of the products. Only 17% (139 reviewers) cited “low performance” regarding the products, while the remaining 14% reported “moderate” performance. On comparing Chart 1 and Chart 2, we see a weak positive association between performance and overall sentiment since all other parameters have relatively higher neutral opinions towards themselves. Hence, we can conclude that our hypothesis is incorrect and that electrical green products have high performance and efficiency in general and performance has the highest weightage among all measurable parameters.
3)Green products are more durable than traditional products in general and last longer
On observing Charts 5,6 and 2, it is evident that public opinion is neutral regarding reliability and durability. While almost 30 percent of reviewers cite poor durability, reporting “damaged parts”, “scratches”, “fragility” and “brittle structural integrity”, 28% of the samples regarded the products as “highly unreliable” with “low consistency and unpredictability in results after considerable periods” alongside low usability and versatility with different environmental setups and commodities. The research is inconclusive as the results only weakly contradict Hypothesis 3.
CONCLUSION
Green Products are capable of providing a positive influence on our environment. With dwindling natural resources, it becomes imperative and prudent to commence massive utility of these products on a civilian level. The opinion of the consumers is neutral regarding the quality of the product in terms of durability and reliability. At the same time, performance has the highest and most critical weightage among all parameters. Though a sizeable number of consumers mention concerns regarding durability and reliability, further study is required to reach a settled conclusion. The cost of the products is not a deterrent or demotivating factor for the green industry and only 2/5th of the reviewers showed willingness to recommend or promote green products in their communities.
The concerns regarding durability, versatility, and reliability need to be addressed by designers and engineers if green products are to constitute the majority of the commercial markets and public commitment by 2035.
REFERENCES
Shamsi, Mohd. Salman & Siddiqui, Zainus Salikin. (2017). Green Product and Consumer Behavior: An Analytical Study. Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities. 25. 1545-1554.
Hooda, Garima & Jaggarwal, Shiv. (2022). GREEN MARKETING IN INDIA: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES.
Cherian, Jacob & Jacob, Jolly. (2012). Green Marketing: A Study of Consumers’ Attitude towards Environment Friendly Products. Asian Social Science. 8. 10.5539/ass.v8n12p117.
