{"id":660086,"date":"2025-04-02T07:34:57","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T04:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/who-are-climate-conscious-consumers-not-who-youd-expect-says-northwind-climate\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T07:34:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T04:34:57","slug":"who-are-climate-conscious-consumers-not-who-youd-expect-says-northwind-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/who-are-climate-conscious-consumers-not-who-youd-expect-says-northwind-climate\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are climate-conscious consumers? Not who you\u2019d expect, says Northwind Climate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes, surprises are lurking in everyday data.<\/p>\n

Take a category of consumers that Doug Rubin\u2019s startup, Northwind Climate, calls \u201cclimate doers.\u201d They\u2019re concerned about climate change and tend to prioritize climate-friendly purchases, the sort of identifiers who might be stereotypically associated with things like buying organic foods or prioritizing local businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTurns out that the climate doers category actually are the consumers who most frequent fast-food restaurants,\u201d Rubin told TechCrunch. What\u2019s more, some 30% of climate doers are Republicans, he added.<\/p>\n

Northwind Climate evolved from Rubin\u2019s work in the political world, where surveys are vital to understanding shifts in public sentiment and identifying likely voters. The startup has raised a $1.05 million pre-seed round, it exclusively told TechCrunch, with participation from angel investors, including Tom Steyer, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, and Alexander Hoffmann of Susty Ventures.<\/p>\n

Rather than divide people into demographic buckets that might segment along political, generational, or regional lines, Northwind Climate analyzes survey responses for behavioral clues that can be used to classify consumers.<\/p>\n

In addition to climate doers, who comprise about 15% of all U.S. consumers, Northwind Climate has identified four other behavioral groups, ranging from \u201cclimate distressed,\u201d or people who are slightly less concerned about climate change and aren\u2019t as financially secure as the climate doers, to the climate deniers, who tend to be retirees who think the media<\/a> is exaggerating the problem.<\/p>\n

But, Rubin adds, \u201ceven in that [climate deniers] bucket, there are messages and ways that work with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
Northwind Climate has found five discrete segments that describe consumers\u2019 views on climate change.<\/span>Image Credits:<\/strong>Northwind Climate<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Take some analysis Northwind did on electric vehicles. For climate doers and \u201cclimate distressed,\u201d two categories of consumers who are most likely to buy an EV, the startup suggests that automakers frame the cars as matter of choice. \u201cWe\u2019re providing choices for those who care about reducing pollution, saving money on gas, and helping address climate change,\u201d reads one of Northwind\u2019s suggested pitches.<\/p>\n

But for climate doubters and deniers, who are less likely to buy one, the focus of the pitch shifts from choice to freedom: \u201cAmericans should have the freedom to drive what they want. We want to make electric vehicles clean, affordable, and practical for the millions of Americans who want one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The startup has built a database that consists of 20,000 survey respondents across eight surveys, and Rubin says it\u2019s growing by 2,500 respondents per month. Every three months, Northwind also runs an industry-specific survey to capture deeper insights for different customers.<\/p>\n

Companies that subscribe to the service, which costs $10,000 per quarter or $40,000 per year for a typical customer, can add up to four of their own questions every quarter, which Rubin said is less than what they\u2019d shell out for one annual survey.<\/p>\n

Within the platform, customers get access to the data Northwind has collected, questions it has asked, and some basic analyses like cross tabulations. The startup is building a chatbot to allow users to ask for more specific analyses using plain language queries.<\/p>\n

Concerned consumers might cast a wary eye on such a platform, worried that it might help companies greenwash their businesses. But Rubin isn\u2019t concerned, saying surveys have shown that consumers are pretty savvy. \u201cOur data shows there is a clear risk to brands and their reputations from making claims that are exaggerated or otherwise untrue,\u201d Rubin said.<\/p>\n

Rubin said that Northwind is also developing what he calls a virtual focus group. It\u2019s essentially an AI model, trained on survey responses, that can analyze a company\u2019s marketing materials like TV spots or social media ads and provide feedback, just like a human focus group would. The startup hopes to have it available in the next four to five months, Rubin said, though it will use new data to continually refine the model.<\/p>\n

Rubin is convinced that companies have been missing opportunities to connect with climate-conscious consumers.\u00a0 \u201cIf you look at the data and where consumers are \u2014 and it\u2019s across the board, it\u2019s not just Democrats or Independents \u2014 they really want this, and they will reward companies who are willing to be smart about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, surprises are lurking in everyday data. Take a category of consumers that Doug Rubin\u2019s startup, Northwind Climate, calls \u201cclimate doers.\u201d They\u2019re concerned about climate change and tend to prioritize climate-friendly purchases, the sort of identifiers who might be stereotypically associated with things like buying organic foods or prioritizing local businesses.\u00a0 \u201cTurns out that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":660091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-289804-001.jpeg?resize=1200,800","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[130390,77143,49099,61594,74839,73155,155267,71526],"class_list":["post-660086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-climate","tag-consumers","tag-exclusive","tag-fundraising","tag-marketing","tag-northwind-climate","tag-surveys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}