Sustainability has moved up among manufacturers’ priorities in recent years, as public awareness of the impact of their food on the environment has increased. But even when consumers seek out sustainably produced foods, they have difficulty finding them, according to the joint study from the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and Deloitte.
Their findings were published in a report entitled Finding the Green in Today's Shoppers: Sustainability Trends and New Shopper Insights. It said that only 22 percent of consumers act on sustainability concerns by buying ‘green’ products, although the GMA said that eco-friendly credentials can work as a tie breaker when consumers are choosing between two similar products.
Brian Lynch, GMA director of sales and sales promotion, said: "We found that for most shoppers, sustainable considerations are an important tie breaker when deciding between two otherwise equal products and they are a driver in product switching. But it’s not enough to just put green products on the shelf. We have to better educate consumers and leverage in-store communication to make the sale."
Hard to find
The report also highlighted the wide gap between consumers who said they were open to considering green products (95 percent) and the 22 percent who actually buy them. In between these extremes, 67 percent said they looked for green products and 47 percent said they found them.
Director and retail leader of Deloitte LLP’s Enterprise Sustainability Group Scott Bearse said this disparity underlines the need for better communication of green messages.
He said: “Sustainable product characteristics are emerging as an important brand differentiator, but to capture the potential market value of green shoppers, retailers and manufacturers must do a better job of communicating the sustainable attributes behind the products to show the value of buying green to the shopper.”
Consistency in communication
However it has also been suggested that consumers are becoming more skeptical of product label claims as they have been swamped by a clamor of co-existing – and sometimes conflicting – labeling schemes.
Bearse said: "Consistent, aligned messaging in stores, online and at other touch points will be essential to converting shoppers from simply being interested in green to buying green."
Meanwhile, attempts are being made to achieve consistency in sustainability reporting. An example is Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Framework - of which the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines are the cornerstone. This provides guidance for organizations to use as the basis for disclosure about their sustainability performance, and also provides stakeholders a framework for comparison to better understand companies’ disclosed information.
The GMA-Deloitte report is available to download at www.deloitte.com/us/greenshopperstudy09.