Several stories this month outline how some companies are using social media to promote the sustainability credentials of their products. At the same time, recent research has found that Fairtrade claims are not as important to consumers as the health credentials of products. It seems there is a potential lag between corporate communications and consumer behaviour. There are many barriers to consumers buying more ethical products, whether it is the price, lack of knowledge or an unwillingness to change behaviour.
The use of social media is definitely a good idea to encourage technology savvy consumers to compare the ethical credentials of products or converse with farmers or suppliers. However, organistions need to take further steps to encourage the wider market to start purchasing more sustainable products. Being green needs to be as easy as possible for people, particularly consumers who don’t normally buy sustainable products. Any products that are perceived to be too difficult, too time consuming, or too expensive will immediately be rejected.
According to the Cooperative’s Ethical Consumerism Report in 2010, expenditure on green goods and services grew 18% between 2007 and 2009 to £43.2 billion, despite the economic downturn. However, at around 6% of the market, ethical spend was still a small proportion of the total annual consumer spend of £700 billion.
Until green products become the ‘norm’ for consumers and companies begin to automatically make their products more sustainable, ensuring these products become the mainstream default choice for consumers will be difficult. In the meantime, companies need to follow the leaders in using social media to appeal to as many different consumers as possible, ensuring their share of the market continues to grow in years to come.
Nicole Clucas is a Senior Researcher at Corproate Citizenship and Editor of Corporate Citizenship Briefing. Contact her at nicole.clucas@corporate-citizenship.com to discuss strategy, environment and the Briefing.
Ethical shopping made simple with new mobile phone app
The Ethical Company Organisation launched ‘The Good Shopping Guide’ as a mobile phone app on 4 February. It costs £2.99 and 10% of the net revenue generated will go to green campaigning charity Friends of the Earth. The Good Shopping Guide Ethical Shopping App is the first of its kind in the UK and gives the user the ability to make clear comparisons with other brands within product sectors. The guide includes more than 700 brands covering the food and drink, health and beauty, travel, energy, fashion, home and office and money sectors and analyses 72 product specific categories across 15 different ethical criteria. It allows consumers to view ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ brands in relation to impacts on the environment, human rights and animal welfare. The Good Shopping Guide Ethical Shopping App is underpinned by ten years of research by The Ethical Company Organisation into the records of hundred’s of the UK’s biggest brands.
Green fatigue among shoppers has set back Britain’s potential refillable bottle revolution, with the latest attempts to persuade supermarket customers to reuse containers ending in failure.
A report by WRAP about an award winning retail trial of in-store dispensing systems during 2010 tested the economic, environmental and operational feasibility of a self-dispensing system of selling laundry liquids in a number of Asda supermarket stores across the UK. It found no insurmountable barriers to using the system and technology provided by Eziserv and concluded that it should therefore be considered as a viable option for supermarkets. However, while a “good sample” of Asda customers refilled the pouch twice, only a “limited number” refilled it more than twice, despite the pouch being designed to withstand 10 refills.
Tetley uses Facebook to connect consumers and tea producers
Tetley lauched an innovative sustaianbility inititiave in February that will allow consumers to communicate directly with tea producing communities who are working towards Rainforest Alliance Certification for their farms. The Farmers First Hand Initiative is all about ‘connection through conversation’ and will initially feature farmers from the Lujeri tea estate in Malawi. Tea farmers and estate employees will use phones and cameras provided by Tetley to share what they are doing and will be able to upload multimedia inc luding photographs and video clips on the Facebook page. This will allow consumers to experience the estate’s journey towards certification as it happens. Consumers will also be able to communicate with tea workers and each other via the Facebook page. Tea from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms will be in Tetley packs on UK supermarket shelves in April.
Fairtrade claims are currently less important to UK shoppers than health or even animal welfare product claims, according to research by MMR Worldwide. This is despite figures from the Fairtrade Foundation showing ongoing growth. The findings are from MMR’s ‘Pulse’ programme, a bi-monthly study of 1,000 UK grocery shoppers. When shoppers were asked in January which product claims they looked for while shopping, only 17% of respondents said Fairtrade. ‘Healthy’ was the most looked for product claim, with 51% of consumers, followed by ‘low or no fat’ with 38% of consumers. Meanwhile, the Fairtrade Foundation, boosted by continued support from mainstream brands, released research on 28 February showing that sales of Fairtrade products increased by 40% to £1.17 billion during 2010.
Soaring demand for green products and services across Asia
According to research by TÜV SÜD Asia Pacific, the consumer demand for green products and services in China, India and Singapore appears to be outstripping supply. The study by the testing, inspection and certification service is the first to investigate consumer and corporate attitudes to green goods and services in Asia found that businesses are underestimating consumer interest and corporate awareness of green issues. The research found that 84% of consumers are prepared to pay a premium of 27% on average for certified green products and services and 74% already purchase such items. However, only 43% of businesses in the surveyed industries (home electronics, food and beverage and clothing and footwear) produce or trade green products in these countries.
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