Abstract
In an effort to support the long-term viability of the bioenergy industry through an end market for digestate, we investigated purchasing preferences for fertilizer product features in the home gardening market. We conducted a discrete choice experiment (DCE), presenting 504 respondents with a total of 6048 product attribute choices in a simulated context that replicated the tradeoff decisions made in the real marketplace. We analyzed the choice data using a hierarchical Bayes estimate to generate part-worth utilities for fertilizer product attributes. We then conducted a latent class analysis to identify market segments that could be expected to respond to differentiated product design strategies. We were able to quantify both purchasing preferences for fertilizer product attributes as well as the importance of each attribute to the perceived utility of a product. We were further able to identify five distinct market segments that make clear the potential for differentiated strategies in the home gardening market. We found both negative and positive price sensitivities, with sociodemographically distinct subgroups that favored low-, mid-, and high-priced products. We also found purchasing preferences for brand status, product labeling and nutrient values. Our results provide insights that should help product managers in the biogas industry develop marketing strategies to integrate digestate into a sustainable energy production system.
Highlights
Few would question that progress towards making societies more sustainable depends on consumer choices
In an effort to support the long-term viability of the bioenergy industry through an end market for digestate, we investigated purchasing preferences for fertilizer product features in the home gardening market
We conducted a discrete choice experiment (DCE), presenting 504 respondents with a total of 6048 product attribute choices in a simulated context that replicated the tradeoff decisions made in the real marketplace
Summary
Few would question that progress towards making societies more sustainable depends on consumer choices. The soil amendment and fertilizer choices made by private gardeners form key links in a chain of production processes, and these processes carry significant environmental consequences. The most important of these are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) [7,8,9], and the production of each consumes energy and contributes to climate change. Phosphorous production relies heavily on limited and nonrenewable mineral resources, making it the subject of extensive scrutiny by environmental scientists [8,11,14,15]. Though potassium itself may pose limited environmental risks, the mining activities involved in the extraction of phosphate rock and potash can cause extensive and long-lasting damage to the environment
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