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Research firms are releasing reports on green consumer trends with increasing frequency, helping businesses align their offerings and messaging to capture the growing market for sustainable goods and services.
Beyond direct marketing implications, such research uncovers a significant opportunity to engage consumers around personal sustainability, low hanging fruit with broad benefits.
The numbers make this clear. According to a report from the Shelton Group, the green-leaning population continues to increase, comprising 77 percent of those surveyed. Yet, these same individuals still prioritize cost over ecological factors and lack a clear understanding of issues like climate change.
The Hartmann Group's sustainability research did a more detailed analysis, classifying respondents as core, midlevel or periphery sustainability supporters. Those in the core (a minority) are willing to put the environment first and spend more, but the rest mirror Shelton's sample.
Clearly, consumers could be inspired to go further and show a willingness to do so. Brands hold significant power over hearts and minds, which could be used to drive such positive change as well as revenue. The opportunity goes beyond selling green products or services to include education on using products more sustainably and tips for reducing one's ecological footprint overall.
It may seem counterintuitive to engage shoppers in environmental activities that don't directly improve profits, but this serves multiple business goals.
• It increases brand reputation by building positive associations around the brand. Repeated studies show individuals are more likely to support and recommend brands they view as good corporate citizens.
• Current rates of resource consumption and greenhouse gas buildup simply can't be maintained if business and society are to thrive. The more we support broader efforts around conservation, pollution prevention, waste reduction, recycling and the like, the more we safeguard our ongoing operations and quality of life.
• Making environmental issues more top of mind and relevant for the general public can drive green purchasing. To size up the prize: A GMA/Deloitte study found that 95 percent of shoppers indicated an interest in buying green products, but only 63 percent look for them when shopping. Letting sustainability slip from shoppers' minds means lost sales.
• Consumer-facing efforts can double as powerful tools to support employee engagement around environmental issues, a key strategy for corporate sustainability, by providing high-impact messaging and enhancing the credibility of internal programs.
• The lifecycle impact of an environmental impact is determined by producers and consumers. It's important to help all stakeholders understand how they contribute to the end result, and build a sense of individual responsibility across everyone involved.
• As we continue to face growing economic, social and environmental challenges, empowering people to take steps that benefit the environment and communities, and often save money, is simply the right thing to do.
There are several excellent examples of companies that are already undertaking these efforts, realizing benefits for business and the greater good.
• Starbucks' "Shared Planet" platform includes a pledge for individuals to volunteer in their communities and bring their own to-go mugs. This certainly helps Starbucks save costs associated with cups, but stands to affect broader resource savings and support good causes in need of a helping hands.
• Clif Bar & Co launched a "2 Mile Challenge" in 2008, inviting participants to use their bike instead of a car for one 2-mile trip a week. This enhanced the company's reputation with bikers, a core target, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and changing participants' habits for good.
• PepsiCo kicked off an "eco-challenge," with a website sharing ideas for individual action with updates on PepsiCo's progress in the same areas. This helps increase the availability of recycled materials and water-key resources for PepsiCo's packaging and products, while driving wider environmental protection.
Actively helping consumers become a deeper shade of green is clearly critical and beneficial in many ways. Ready to engage?
Melissa Schweisguth is director of membership development and education for the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association and an independent consultant on CSR/sustainability and marketing/communications. She also sits on the advisory board for Big Tree Climate Fund and maintains a blog, "Full Circle Impact."
Image by Vincitrice.
GS1 Databar
I would be interested in your take on the sustainability marketing potential of the GS1 Databar, a small barcode that is rapidly becoming standard labeling for loose produce items. My idea is that sustainability metrics could be encoded into these barcodes.
How that data could be used is anyone's guess but I can see stores having sustainability ratings for their entire produce departments, or you could have certain brands targeting sustainability conscious consumers who could access the information by scanning the produce items with a cell phone or other mobile device.
The real question, I guess, is would anyone use or access the information if it was available and would the growers and shippers using the labels be rewarded for the effort required to label each produce item. We think so, but many others disagree.
John Bailey
Executive Director
Top 10 Produce LLC
www.Top10Produce.com
re: GS1 Databar
John,
Thanks for the interesting comment. Integrating sustainability markers could certainly be achieved by extending barcodes, but the process to develop and agree on standards and a coding system would certainly be quite involved. Several companies use lot codes to share this information now.
Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers mark each lot of coffee they import using RFID and log sourcing/trading information for that lot, making it possible for buyers anywhere in the chain to access information on the social, environmental and economic impact of the coffee. It is an incredible, groundbreaking system, but certainly bears a cost.
Several companies (Taza, Askinosie, Organic Valley, some bananas) have special codes on their products that consumers can enter online to learn how it was grown, traded, processed, etc. Companies with direct, transparent supply chains are able to do this. The ones listed are small to medium enterprises, but larger companies are beginning to make commitments to have a traceable supply, such as MARS' commitment to certify all their cocoa through 3rd parties by 2020.
GoodGuide has product ratings online and consumers w/ iPhones can download an app to get this information on their phones. Ideally, there would be a kiosk or scanners in stores to make such information accessible to all consumers without everyone needing a handheld device.
Melissa
But Yet Another Study
Keep the studies coming. The fact is, that for all of us that work day to day in the world of corporate sustainability, profits and cost savings ALWAYS trump green efforts. For most of these companies they spend miniscule amounts of budget to do just enough to reach out and tell consumers they care about the planet. The reality is if going green is going to get in the way of making green then it just won't happen.