Consumers Warming Up To Wool

Strong wool has faced stiff competition from synthetic products in recent years, but new research suggests consumers are starting to get the message about the benefits of New Zealand wool.

Ryan Cosgrove is Chairman of the Campaign for Wool NZ (CFWNZ), one of several industry groups around the world helping to spread the gospel of wool. He says a lot of things have gone against strong wool for the last few decades, and the industry is “playing catch-up” in combating the rise of synthetic alternatives for products like carpet.

“There's a lot of passion, a lot of drive, but more importantly, a lot of science being done to make sure we do fill the gaps,” he says. “As an industry we've been pretty terrible marketers, and that's why you see a lot of farmers take control of the product themselves, which is admirable, and The Clip is an exceptional example of that.” The good news is that the effort to resurrect strong wool seems to be working. New research on US consumers shows that in the space of only two years, there has been an increase of between 11-20 percent in awareness of the following attributes of wool: warm, natural, strong, insulated, comfortable and fire retardant.

Ryan says the study, commissioned by CFWNZ, also shows positive signs for New Zealand wool producers. “US consumers over the last two years have become more aware of what wool can do, and New Zealand's up 13 percent in awareness as a wool producing country over the same period, so this shows the New Zealand wool team is doing well in changing our messaging.”

One of the challenges for strong wool, he says, is that the purchasing process is very different for buying products like carpet than it is for fine wool products like garments. “Fine wool and wool garments are so popular because the emotive process of buying a garment is so much more interactive. You go into the store and the first thing you do is touch: you grab things, you flick through them, and wool really shines with touch,” Ryan says. “Whereas when you're buying your carpet, you probably looked at a picture of it and best case you saw a swatch of it, but it was probably specified for you by the builder or the architect and you signed off a set of plans and you never had a relationship with the product. Those traits of being warm, soft and comfortable, aren't experiences you have when you buy a lot of strong wool products, just because of the way you buy.”

To combat this, CFWNZ is focused on telling stories that educate while also creating emotional investment in wool, such as a recent nationwide campaign across print, digital, radio and TV, about how choosing wool affects your child. “Wool regulates moisture in the home, so by choosing plastic, you're choosing excess humidity, excess mould growth,” Ryan says. “Wool's naturally fire retardant, so when you choose synthetic, you're putting undue risk of super-flammable things around your child in the bedroom. We're not selling a product, but telling people things they already understand about wool, framing it in a way that really puts a lot of emotion into the choice.” 

Getting consumers on board is vital, but the industry has also been working with the government around procurement policies, following the Ministry of Education’s controversial contract with US firm Milliken to lay nylon carpet tiles in 600 schools. That deal “blew up the industry”, Ryan says. “We got a lot of traction and noise, and it highlighted problems with the framework and the procurement decisions.

“A lot of these procurement frameworks were written in a way where they were inherently synthetic-biased. One of the key things the industry has worked to change is moisture absorption was a bad thing in the procurement framework. Synthetic doesn't absorb moisture at all, but wool does absorb moisture and particularly moisture in the air, because it's an active regulator of humidity in the room.

“It's not just one way though. It breathes, so when there's high humidity in the room and there's lots of kids, it absorbs, and then when it goes the other way at night, it releases. It breathes and regulates the air quality, but because of that active natural mechanism, wool was penalised in that category. It's a far healthier function.”

Another unfair advantage for synthetics is around their carbon footprint, a key consideration for many consumers and organisations these days. Although polyester and nylons are byproducts of the petrol industry, the carbon emitted in extracting the oil used in their production is not counted as part of their total. “A new study in New Zealand has effectively halved the carbon footprint of wool. That's just playing by the existing rules, even though we think they aren't fair,” Ryan says. 

“Then there's also things like end of life, recyclability and microplastics pollution. We know that wool is biodegradable, even after dying and treating. There are reclaimable carpet schemes around the world for wool carpets. Where we're missing a little bit is some of the other materials in the carpet, but you've got organisations like Bremworth who've got a big government grant to explore using different materials in the adhesives in the backing, to make the whole thing recyclable.”

The other big area of focus for CFWNZ is education. Its Wool in Schools programme has seen more than 35,000 primary school students touch wool and learn about its benefits, hopefully going home and telling their mum and dads. Ryan says CFWNZ is working on creating a tertiary course with architects and designers around using wool products. It is also eyeing the secondary school space.

“It’s about making sure children in New Zealand have that exposure to wool, so when they become key professional decision makers, they already know all that stuff.”