What is in the price of green?

When you buy something, do you ever think about what the thing costs to make and where the money is spent in bringing the product to market? When I watch the Superbowl, I always think wow, these companies spend a boatload of money for the ad time - whatever it is that they are selling has to include this boatload of cost in the product cost. So how much of what you spend to buy something is actually spent on the making the product?

When you buy a piece of furniture like a Bertoia chair, a Zody chair or an Eames chair, the designer royalty is embedded in the price of the chair. So you actually pay for the design, materials, manufacturing, advertisement etc. So when you buy a knockoff of the same chair, is the price difference the cost of design? or inferior materials? or lower wages? or less attention to details? or less advertisement on Superbowl Sunday? What is it?

We recently compared the price of a US manufactured cubicle to the price of a Chinese manufactured cubicle. The US product by Haworth has Greenguard certification and all of the needed information to support recycled content amounts and other relevant data pertaining to LEED but more interestingly, the product addresses sustainability. The Chinese product was not Greenguard certified, it did not have any available information about the content of the product and there was nothing we could find that was sustainable about the product. What was the price difference? Not much, if any. So, it got me thinking - what is it that makes up the price? Are the importers of the Chinese made furniture just making more profit and you are actually getting less of a product for the same amount? If the US product has addressed "green" at the same price as the Chinese product without "green", is there a price to green? I think we are quick to associate higher price with being more green however, I am wondering if it is really about what is in the price, like value, instead of the cost of green.