Consumers’ knowledge of bio-energetics

Our aim was to establish the specific objectives and toolkit of eco-energetic marketing targeting the North Hungarian region, through a primary survey of 600 persons. Our research objective was to examine – taking the region’s economic and social circumstances into consideration – what conditions, consumer reception, and affinity is needed to gain competitive advantage with the involvement of renewable energy sources, and also to point out the characteristics of how the population currently uses energy, its mode and satisfaction level. During the examination of consumers’ familiarity level with renewable energy sources we observed the dominance of solar, hydro, and wind energy, nevertheless, their knowledge about these renewable energy sources was rather superficial. Concerning the main sources of knowledge on renewable energy sources we can state that the respondents showed a preference for traditional media, such as television, the press, and radio. It is apparent – as opposed to similar results from previous research – that the reference groups were the least significant influential sources of information in respect of the whole spectrum of respondents. The results of the attitude examination established the following facts: of the factors associated with renewable energy sources, environment protection, inexpensiveness, local energy production, and investment demand were most frequently mentioned. All this suggests that respondents are well aware of the cleanness of renewable energy sources and also that these sources will probably be cheaper than fossil fuels. Most respondents would typically give moral rather than financial support for the implementation of such an initiative.