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LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, August 27, 2004: Is your car vegan? Actor Michael Bell’s is. The 66-year-old Los Angeles resident doesn’t eat or wear animal products, and his hybrid car doesn’t have a stitch of leather in it. If it had, Bell said, he wouldn’t have bought the car, a 2001 Toyota Prius, despite its impeccable green credentials. In raw numbers, vegans such as Bell are so few that they barely register on surveys of consumer habits. But to automobile manufacturers trying to win favor among the increasing number of consumers who say they are environmentally conscious, vegans — who avoid all animal products — are what one marketing expert called the center of the bull’s-eye. Pleasing vegans, the theory goes, is key to reaching a wider group of consumers — affluent shoppers who worry about the environment and who are willing to pay extra for food, clothing and even automobiles, if they are made in ways that do less harm to the planet.



Toyota Motor Corp. is so attuned to the sensibilities of these so-called green consumers that the company doesn’t even offer leather seats for the popular Prius. Ford Motor Co., under fire from environmental activists for its gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles, ran an eight-page advertisement in The New Yorker magazine touting the company’s green credentials. The ad led off with the boast that 11 members of the design team for the company’s soon-to-be-released hybrid Escape SUV are vegetarians, and its leader is a vegan. Even Mercedes-Benz, which does not make a hybrid, will offer a “non-leather” package starting with the 2005 model year, in response to customer requests. Previously, all of the luxury automaker’s high-end cars came standard with leather seats.



Vegans themselves are not a powerful market force. Joe Marra, executive director of a market research firm that specializes in environmentally conscious consumers, said vegetarians make up just 1.5 percent of the general population, and vegans hardly register at all. But Marra’s firm, the Natural Marketing Institute, has done research showing that more than a quarter of the adult population, about 56 million people nationwide, say they look for products that are “healthy and sustainable.” And the vast majority of these consumers say they are willing to pay significantly more for environmentally friendly products. It’s these customers — who buy organic produce and biodegradable cleaning products — whom the car companies really want, Marra and others said.

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