Project: TopTen - Ecological Product Innovation

Project Head: Konrad Götz Project Team: Barbara Birzle-Harder Konrad Götz Cooperation: Öko-Institut Freiburg, Darmstadt, Berlin (Projectcoordination)   Practice Partners: Volkswagen Loewe Deutsche Telekom Industrieverband Körperpflege und Waschmittel Funding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research Duration: 07/02 - 05/04   Field of research   about the Institute

The project TopTen has been developed by the "Oeko-Institut", a reputable, independent German environmental institute, and is financed by the Federal Ministry of Research and Education. The aim of this innovative project is to substitute environmentally harmful products. Environmental friendly, well-designed and technically advanced products of high quality will be developed and - in case they already are developed - brought into the market. Within the scope of this project, ISOE is responsible for the social-ecological marketing research on different products. This research is based on life-style-models and investigates the environmental orientations in different target groups. Three focus groups per product will show which target group responds best to the products. The additionally will give an answer to the question, if and especially why the whole campaign is attractive or not. The results are not only used to draw conclusions for improving the TopTen campaign, but also for developing new products and positioning them on the market. It is planned to include those 10 product areas, which cause two thirds of the entire environmental pollution in Germany. To begin with, the project has been started with four partners/ products: The so-called "three-litre-Lupo" (Volkswagen) which only needs three litres of diesel per 100 km. The attention will be turned on an optimised marketing and alternative ways of marketing. The Loewe-company - developing a multi-functional, ecological TV. Here, the integration of the client's technical and design-orientated demands into the target group-specific product development is most important. The "Deutsche Telekom" and its T-Net-Box, which would make it possible to reduce around 90% of all environmental impact, if the consumers agreed on replacing their answering and fax machines. In this area, there is an obvious need for an innovative marketing with new arguments The "Industrieverband Körperpflege und Waschmittel (IKW)", the association of producers of personal hygiene and washing detergents, will start a communication campaign to lead consumers towards a different, more sustainable washing behaviour. In the beginning of 2002, an image campaign will be started to introduce the TopTen aims to the German public and to built a positive image around the TopTen-label.