Only 45% of American Environmentalists Know What 'Carbon-Neutral' Means – Poll

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Less than half of American self-identified environmentalists can give a correct definition of "carbon-neutral" markings, increasingly used by manufacturers, according to a Morning Consult poll out Tuesday.

Only 45% of American environmentalists and only 41% of US adults correctly defined that a carbon-neutral label indicates that despite emissions released in the creation of the product, the brand compensated for their harmful effects by purchasing "offsets," or donations to projects that reduce emissions such as by planting trees, the pollster explained.

The poll also found that just 6% of Americans always try to buy products with a carbon-neutral label, about 28% either sometimes or rarely try to do it. Fourteen percent of US adults and 9% of US environmentalists said they never buy carbon-neutral items.

The majority of Americans - 52% - said they have not seen a carbon-neutral label.

The poll was conducted on July 26 among a representative sample of 2,210 US adults, including 1,358 self-identified environmentalists, with unweighted margins of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points and plus or minus 3 percentage points, respectively.