Liberal? Not with Donations
Here’s an interesting find- according to a few separate studies, conservatives donate more to charities than liberals do- across the board. Kristof’s NYTimes Op-Ed is basically a call to action right before the holiday madness descends on us. Liberals- loosen those purse-strings and be charitable. Conservatives- keep it coming.
I’m not sure I’m all that surprised, given the religious charity angle. Yet, this surprises me:
“Conservatives also appear to be more generous than liberals in nonfinancial ways. People in red states are considerably more likely to volunteer for good causes, and conservatives give blood more often. If liberals and moderates gave blood as often as conservatives, Mr. Brooks said, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent.”
My eyes are peeled for a study that examines the discrepancy in green spending between liberals and conservatives. That should be an interesting one.
Preaching to the Choir
By nature, a lot of offset services are geared towards people with a high awareness about environmental issues. It makes perfect sense. Not everyone goes beyond the threshold of concern to action, and those that do tend to be part of the traditional historic green environmental target.
Though it’s a safe target, we all need to do our part to broaden the message. We need to engage new people with a new value proposition. That’s what inspired Belgrave Trust.
Historically, so much of environmental positioning is based squarely on guilt. You see it in most of the major carbon offsetting companies. Something we found when talking to high net worth individuals is that guilt was not what motivated them to go green. Instead, when confronted about their choice, they often spoke of legacy, of the planet their children were going to inherit. Many equated carbon neutrality with setting up a trust fund or articulating their will and testament. “You hit a certain level of affluence,” a customer told us, “you have what you need, and you start to be more concerned about the future- it becomes your focus.”
Something else that we found made high net worth individuals reluctant to balance their carbon was the lack of a global solution. Jetsetters are global by nature. We’re all too aware that this is a global problem in need of a global solution. As another customer put it, “Local regulation won’t get us there- no matter what we do in New Jersey, there are a still a billion people in India, Brazil and China that won’t adopt the same regulation.”
Markets are inherently global. That’s why we at Belgrave believe that markets are the solution to this global problem. High net worth individuals are also inherently global. That’s why we believe that it’s up to us to drive the solution.
A Global View of Air Traffic
Worth thousands of words.
