Today, the European Commission (EC) published its 2023 Consumer Conditions Scoreboard. The results show that almost half of consumers across the EU Member States, as well as in Iceland and Norway, worried about being able to pay their bills, while a large majority took measures to reduce their energy consumption at home.
Consumer scoreboards are biennial reports collecting data on conditions for consumers with regards to topical themes. For this year's scoreboard, surveys on consumer habits during crises and during the green as well as digital transitions were conducted between October and November 2022.
These are further results:
- 48 percent of consumes worried about being able to pay their bills, such as for mortgages and transport to work, while 37 percent said they dipped into their savings.
- In response to the energy crisis, 71 percent of consumers reported to have changed their habits to save energy at home, by using public subsidies for energy efficiency measures or by changing their use of transport.
- While the vast majority of consumers believed they should personally do more to contribute to the green transition, 43 percent of respondents said they were not at all influenced by environmental concerns in their purchasing decisions.
- Compared to results from 2020, fewer consumers believed in the reliability of environmental product claims, which could be attributed to a higher level of awareness about greenwashing.
- With growing e-commerce sales, consumers are increasingly exposed to unfair practices, for instance personally targeted online advertising (76 percent), hidden advertising in search results (75 percent) and disingenuous consumer reviews (69 percent).
- 94 percent of consumers expressed concerns about online advertising, specifically about inappropriate use and sharing of personal data (70 percent), the collection of online data and related profiling without explicit knowledge or agreement (66 percent) and about cookies' installation (57 percent).
Source: EC
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