Preferences for Sustainable Lawn Care Practices: The Choice of Lawn Fertilizers

Urban sprawl in the U.S. has substantially increased the area of maintained residential landscapes. While there are social and economic benefits associated with well-maintained residential lawns, improper landscaping practices, such as excessive irrigation and fertilization may result in adverse environmental effects such as fertilizer chemicals runoff into water resources. Previous studies investigated homeowners’ landscaping practices such as amount and frequency of irrigation or fertilizing. However, preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for eco-friendly fertilizer attributes, which would benefit marketers, educators, and local governments in fertilizers regulation related decision making, remains largely unexplored. This study utilized a discrete choice experiment to investigate whether and how the presence of ecofriendly attributes influence consumers’ preferences and WTP for lawn fertilizers. Results from the mixed logit model showed that homeowners were willing to pay price premiums for products featured with environmentally-sustainable attributes (i.e., controlled-release nitrogen, phosphorus-free, and natural and/or organic). It was also found that the experiment participants preferred lawn fertilizers that were labeled as pet-friendly and those that included pest control feature. Relevant policy and marketing implications are discussed.