Background

Consumers have the right to inquire whether a consumer article contains substances of very high concern (‘SVHC right to know’). This communication tool is designed to stimulate suppliers to substitute such ingredients. A survey among 1321 consumers with high motivation and interest in harmful substances in everyday products was conducted to understand the acceptance of this ‘right to know’ among consumers.

Results

Only one out of seven survey participants stated to be well informed about the ‘SVHC right to know’ with nearly all of them having good self-reported chemical knowledge. Three quarters of the participants who are not working with chemicals or REACH at their workplace have never heard about the ‘SVHC right to know’. Every second participant declared their interest to search for more information about an SVHC in a certain article, but, in fact, not more than 4% of all participants inquired for SVHCs with various methods. Only 1% would buy an SVHC-containing article with no strings attached. While detailed comments by some survey participants showed a high level of understanding of the issue, many respondents were not sure what the SVHC information means for their daily life. They declared that they would inform themselves, reduce the use of the article with SVHCs, circulate this information, or throw such an article into the garbage. Most study participants suggested improvements of the ‘SVHC right to know’. The preferred suggestions were a ban of SVHCs, easily understandable information on the packaging, full ingredient declaration on the articles, or no need to inquire for every single item, while smartphone applications for SVHC requests were the least popular suggestion in all age groups.

Conclusions

Various reasons could be identified why most consumers—even these motivated and interested ones—do not use the ‘SVHC right to know’. This allowed developing recommendations for improving the effectiveness of this communication instrument on the way to the gradual elimination of SVHCs in consumer articles.

中文翻译：

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消费者是否关心文章中高度关注的物质？

背景

消费者有权询问消费品是否含有高度关注的物质（“SVHC 知情权”）。这种沟通工具旨在刺激供应商替代此类成分。为了了解消费者对这种“知情权”的接受程度，我们对 1321 名对日常用品中的有害物质有强烈兴趣和兴趣的消费者进行了调查。

结果

只有七分之一的调查参与者表示对“SVHC 知情权”了如指掌，几乎所有人都具有良好的自我报告化学知识。在工作场所不使用化学品或 REACH 的参与者中有四分之三从未听说过“SVHC 知情权”。每隔一秒参与者就表示他们有兴趣在某篇文章中搜索有关 SVHC 的更多信息，但实际上，不超过 4% 的参与者通过各种方法查询了 SVHC。只有 1% 的人会购买不含附加条件的 SVHC 文章。虽然一些调查参与者的详细评论表明对该问题的理解程度很高，但许多受访者不确定 SVHC 信息对他们的日常生活意味着什么。他们宣布他们会通知自己，减少对含有 SVHC 的物品的使用，传播此信息，或将此类物品扔进垃圾箱。大多数研究参与者建议改进“SVHC 知情权”。首选建议是禁止 SVHC、易于理解的包装信息、物品上的完整成分声明或无需查询每件商品，而智能手机应用程序请求 SVHC 是所有年龄段中最不受欢迎的建议。

结论

可以确定为什么大多数消费者（即使是这些积极和感兴趣的消费者）不使用“SVHC 知情权”的各种原因。这使得在逐步消除消费品中的 SVHC 的过程中，可以就提高该交流工具的有效性提出建议。