Ok guys...I need some feedback. I sell polyester and nylon yarns to the golf industry and "green" has started to take on a little momentum now. We have a recycled polyester and nylon product that we currently sell that is considered the industry standard by most. Typically, a pound of this yarn vs. a pound of virgin polyester/nylon is 25% more. That translates into a shirt cost of being 5-8% more. So, if you were looking at a golf shirt that has exactly the style and fit that you want and let's say it retails for $50.00. Would you be willing to pay $53-$55 for it knowing that it was made from recycled materials?

I need as many opinions as I can...

If it wears the same and is just as durable-then yes, I'd pay a bit more to be "greener" or really, more accurately, avoid using a bit more of a barrel of "fresh" oil.

Here's what "green" means to me:

My company is in trouble so I need to save money by going "green". I see this crap at work all day long. Stupid greening initiatives. I think I'm going to go drink out of a plastic bottle right now....

But if it were from recycled materials, shouldn't the price be less? Otherwise, what's the point of recycling? If the world really wants to get people to start thinking "green", then they need to reward them, not punish with price. Who's doing who the favour here? The consumer or the manufacturer? There needs to be some sort of incentive to make the green choice.
The thing that really bugs me is why does a size S shirt cost the same as an XXXL? The larger shirt probably has 25% more material - where's the economics in that?

My experience is that the majority of people would be happy to go down the green route - provided the green suppliers can produce it at or below the price point of the 'regular' item and maintain the quality.

Whilst ever there's a price premium, and particularly now, in these financially strapped times, a large section of the buying public will sacrifice moral satisfaction for a smaller bill on their credit card each month. For as long as the knowledge that you're doing your bit to save the environment costs you 5-10% more, there'll be a lot that will do without it.

as a retailer, the next person who walks in my door, and "geen" is the deal breaker will be the first.


After more thought, the next time a customer brings up "green" as it applies to clothing will also be the first.


it's just more marketing crap from the customers point of view.

here's what customers want:

1. price

2. color/style

3. fit

4. brand name

While I'm not sure about the minimum standards for what is considered "Green" today, Patagonia set the bar many years ago by using recycled plastic bottles. Adapt as necessary for your product. Since it's the current buzz word, I would say don't go for the minimum - set the bar higher to attract buyers. Hell, you can even deliver your product in a reusable Hemp bag that can then be used for groceries, bong, or stash or whatever.

Honestly Id stay away from any "Green" clothing. I would think the quality would not be as good.

I think clothier's post sums it up very well. being green might make you feel better, but, I wouldn't spend extra money to be green.

You can color me, cheap.

Personally I think the whole green/global warming ship has sailed.

Nobody really cares about the enviroment like they did 12-18 months ago. Everyone is concerned with the economy now.

Green to me describes what color the golf course should be.

Green is a big deal now to me since I do not want the earth to crumble away and die..LOL..really, I want to help grow and keep it clean and get back to being healthy.

I am starting to remodel my house into Eco Friendly, so adding on 5kwh Solar Panels, Solar panel for Jacuzzi, Solar yard lights and spot lights, LED lighting interior since they use lower voltage, FSC Bamboo flooring with no VOC Paint and glue, Double Pane windows and old refurbished doors and knobs. Stainless steel counter tops and bar area. Green is a bid deal to me, being from Cali and all, I want to see as much green in the world as possible!! Sorry for the rant and race guys. Big issue to me.LOL

Just one extra point you may want to add as this will also help sales, "made from recycled materials in the USA"

If you're looking for incite as to what I'll pay more for, then that's it. Helping keep America clean and employed. I'll go +15% for made in America.

what he said............oh and if it happens to be "green" great, but you better meet the criteria for #'s 1-4 first. Otherwise I would just feel ripped off, I just hope the govt. doesnt start mandating this crap, then we will all be ripped off, no doubt.

If California would just buid a couple of nuclear power plants you wouldnt have to worry about all that....

Remember, it's not Global Warming anymore, it's CLIMATE CHANGE. With much more evidence coming out that this may be a natural progression, and the current weather conditions (boy, it's cold), Al Gore and the rest of the alarmists needed to come up with a Freddie Blassie. You ask what a Freddie Blassie is? It's "Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions."

If California would somehow allow limits on population we wouldn't have to worry about energy shortages, water shortages, landfills overflowing, farmland being plowed under for new development, etc.
Maybe it's broadcast the Rose Parade on sunny 75* days when the rest of the country is at friggen -12* or just that Cali is the leader in "bring us your, poor, your hungry" but we already have waaaay too many people and this is the whole reason for going green, if we don't do it now, your children will just have to go without. Period.
And to back up my words I've been running a solar grid tied system for 5 years now, grow my own veggies, and walk to work. Now if I could just find a Bettinardi fashioned from old tractor parts...

Don't know about tractor parts, but I remember seeing a post about putters being made from recycled forks and knives one time...

(Sorry. Couldln't resist!)

To answer a couple of questions:

1) Yes, this is made in the USA. In NC specifically.

2) Green is not less expensive for several reasons. 1) The collection method is not cheap. 2) If everyone would only put plastic bottles into the bin, it would really help the cost. But, since everyone wants to put bubble gum wrappers, tobacco, garbage, etc., it takes a lot of filtering to get that back down to a pure polyester form. 3) Asian polyester prices have gone through the floor. So, recycling in the U.S. is more expensive than virgin Asian prices. 4) We have to slow down the machines to run it, in order to get a first quality product out of it (more filtering in this process). This is why it is more expensive.

3) Recycled polyester is first quality, the same as virgin polyester. Strengths, color, etc. are all comparable with virgin polyester.

4) The green movement DEFINITELY didn't peak 12-18 months ago. In fact, it was a MUCH tougher sale then, than it is today. "Green" is still going strong even in this economy. In fact, I've attended the PGA, Surf and Outdoor Retailer shows in the last month and "Green" was in every line by every company.

Hope this helps.

For me, you've met my criteria, now I just need to know who you supply with your fabric.

For those still questioning the extra cost in a shirt, lets say, how many times do you wear a shirt over it's lifetime? Lets say you wear it 50 times in it's life and it ends up costing you $1.05 per wearing, now comparitivly how much did you pay for that Pro-V that you just put in the lake on the right first time out of the pack?

The whole green thing is important. What I don't like is how the lobbyists play on our fears to extract more money from our wallets. If everybody reduced, reused and recycled, things would actually be cheaper.

I'm kind of chuckling at the concept of "green" polyester. If I were truly worried about the environmental impact of my clothing, I would buy cotton or linen.

True...never thought about that.

You chuckle at green polyester? For every pound that is sold of our product, it saves a half a gallon of gas. Last year, we could have operated 1800 hybrid cars for an entire year that put 20,000 miles on their car just with the savings....

Not so much to chuckle at anymore....it adds up.

Amen to that.

I am not only kinda chucking "green" polyester. To me the polyester shirts, recycled or not are about a comfortable as a medieval hairshirt.

I have become convinced that "man-made" climate change is the biggest hoax since Orson Welles broadcast War of the Worlds in the 1930's. This proves conclusively that if you tell a big enough lie often enough some people will actually begin to believe it.

Ooops, that was Adolph Hitler not Orson Welles.

Oh yeah, I don't doubt that you need less petroleum at the factory to produce recycled poly blends. I'd be curious to see the total energy numbers to recycle, though, when you factor in trucking, separation, and the electricity burned in the production process.

But really my only point was that if I were shopping for golf clothes with a "green" conscience, I would eschew all polyester in favor of a renewable resource like cotton. Not criticizing the product at all.

Sheriff,

Definitely didn't take it personally. I would tell you that you miss a LOT of steps of crude oil processing that it takes to make virgin polyester vs. breaking down recycled waste. All of our numbers were 3rd party commissioned, so they took into account all of those elements you are mentioning.

Also, for the person that said recycled polyester feels more harsh, it actually feels no different than virgin polyester. You couldn't tell the difference if I gave you a microscope.

I would question, a bit, the "renewable' nature of cotton (or for that matter any commercially farmed product-except those that do not use any fertilizer, pesticides or other growth enhancing products in their lifecycle)-if you consider the fertilizer, pesticide, etc used in the production of a bale of cotton, it might very well utilize a nearly equivalent amount of oil derived product as an similar amount of polyester.

Although green is my favorite color, "green" to me means more taxation without representation. Therefore, time for another (green) Tea Party.

Sorry for the political aside...I simply hate the whole "green" nonsense.

The old conventional wisdom on cotton was that it was very water and pesticide intensive. But agricultural practices have changed quite a bit in the last 15 or so years, and along with the introduction of some more pest and drought tolerant strains, commercial cotton is not awful.

And I guess the overarching point is that you can have cotton, albeit not necessarily high yield cotton, without petroleum based fertilizer and pesticide. But you can never have polyster without oil.

But again, I don't want to send the wrong message about me - I wear plenty of poly and poly blend clothing. I wouldn't trade my 50/50 undershirts for anything.

The real future is probably in something like bamboo - a crop that is naturally high yield and fast growing. I've got some bamboo towels that really pretty nice, but I've never seen a bamboo shirt.

I would pay nothing more for something green.

It is similar to healthy foods...they are more expensive then unhealthy foods.

I'm not saying bamboo is a bad product (although the majority of it is wrapped around virgin polyester...but, that's not the story they want you to hear), but would you rather go back to relying on oil more and putting polyester back into the landfills? Just something to think about...and, how long before you put such a demand on bamboo that it affects other markets? Remember what ethynol did to the food market when thinking of using it as the new gas...

I hear what you're saying but what I was really getting at is that many folks who talk about "green" (and this is from both sides of the argument) fail to consider to the total energy balance in determining what is green-Ethanol is a perfect example of this-the total energy balance for a gallon of the product (produced as it currently is) is slightly to significantly negative when compared to a gallon of diesel or gasoline however a lot of folks think that ethanol is "greener" than diesel or gas.

Just as an aside-you hit on one of my pet peeves regarding the green movement-the cotton you speak of is probably a direct result of selective breeding and quite possibly some genetic manipulation-alterations that made it much "greener" but would be unacceptable to many of the high priests of the green movement.

Rant off

To answer the original question, no, I wouldn't pay more.

Let me ask this... if the environment is so critical (and I believe that it is), and the green materials are equivalent to the non-green materials, then why not do away completely with the non-green product? Why do I have a choice?

You're asking me to pay a bit more? Why doesn't your company take a hit on their profit instead and leave my price the same?

You're asking me to pay a bit more for the sake of the world, why doesn't the manufacturer do the same thing? You just want to pass the cost along to me and take no hit yourself.

Yes, yes, I know, this is not how business works. These are rhetorical questions that go far beyond the scope of GolfWRX. But bottom line is the bottom line, so no, I won't pay a penny more for "green." Recycled means "used" to me- and used is always cheaper than new.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of "cake and eat it too" folks out there, as well as the people who haven't thought the production/energy process all the way through.

Like if we all drive 100% electric cars - that electricity comes from somewhere (ie burning coal).

Back on topic - if I went to the proshop and saw a shirt I liked, and I looked at the tag and it said made with 50% or 100% recycled polyester, I would personally think "Bonus." But if two identical shirts were hanging with one at $50 with recycled poly and one at $45 with virgin poly, I'd buy the cheaper one. And likewise, I'm not going to pass on an Adidas that I like to buy an Ashworth just because it's made with recycled poly.

No to the question and I think of this when somebody says going green.

Wow, just got back to reading some of the responses... pretty sad lot here. I'm sorry that so few take the initiative to be a drop in the bucket for the (hopeful) future. Spend the money you save wisely, maybe on some SPF 100 sunscreen or just a Happy Meal if that's really all you need to survive.

Maybe... I don't doubt the OP's statement that the "green" material costs more to his company, and of course those costs are passed down the line to the consumer. But I honestly feel that a lot of this stuff is just, "Hey, we stick the 'green' catchword on stuff and we can charge more for it!" If not his company, maybe his supplier, or their supplier.

I refuse to pay more for that.

We purchase recycled paper at work- saves money because it is cheaper. I guarantee you that if new paper was cheaper, every company in the US would purchase new instead.

To answer the question about shouldn't our company take a hit and sell it for cheaper? We are the manufacturer and we actually donate a percentage of our profits on the product to environmental charities.

More than likely, you aren't going to know that you could have paid less for virgin polyester. You are going to see the shirt on the shelf and it is going to cost x amount. You see that the tag says "made from recycled polyester" and it is the style and fit that you like. You normally are used to paying around $50 for a shirt, but this one costs $52.99. Is that $2.99 too much for you and do you feel better if it is made from recycled materials?

Maybe this plant???
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-284.html

I see your point and I agree with you. The thread kind of took on some assumptions as we went along. I was kind of going on a side by side comparison of green vs. non-green products, which is not really the case. In the store, I'm not going to have a choice between the two, which I kind of assumed I would have.

I don't really like paying more for recycled materials because that is what has been drilled into me for many years. Originally, my perception of "recycled" was not so much for the environment, but was more for manufacturing- why buy new materials when the recycled ones are almost as good, cheaper, and we can pass the savings along to the consumer. By the way, helping the planet was icing on the cake.

But you're breaking that perception by saying that the recycled materials a) cost more, and b) are as good and indistinguishable compared to new materials, at least in this case. (In the plastics and paper industry, I do not believe that is true.)

I might buy the green product if they were side by side. Frankly for me a few bucks aren't going to make a difference if it is the brand I like (Under Armour) I will buy it even when other products are cheaper or on sale. If it isn't what I like I won't buy it. I probably wouldn't even notice if prices went up as long as the increase was less than 20% or so.