All natural,” “fair trade,” “organic”—more and more products across the store include claims of sustainability. But what do all these claims mean? Describing a product as “sustainable” could mean that it’s sourced responsibly, for example, or that it utilizes recyclable packaging—as well as a whole host of other potential attributes. Understanding how and why sustainability claims are gaining momentum across product categories is critical to understanding how, when and why consumers prioritize sustainable options.
With all of the various sustainability factors and evolving trends in play, companies need to understand whether and how these broader sentiments play out for their specific brand and consumer profile. For example, who are the consumers you have yet to reach? Does your product have a sustainable attribute—and could leveraging sustainability claims on product packaging present a new market opportunity?
In a recent report, we compared the performance of sustainability claims in the U.S. across three product categories—chocolate, coffee, and bath products—to understand consumers’ sentiments toward various sustainability factors.
For all three categories, dollar sales of items with the specific claims studied grew twice as fast as the weighted average dollar growth of the three categories combined. In other words, products with certain sustainability attributes outperformed the growth rate of total products in their respective categories despite challenges that might have predicted otherwise, like a relatively smaller market share.
That said, one size does not fit all. Given the range of different, interrelated sustainability aspects in each product category, we focused on select product claims for each category. But the methodology can be replicated across many fast-moving consumer goods product categories and customized for specific brands or companies. No matter what, sustainability is no longer a niche play: your bottom-line and brand growth depend on it.
SWEET, SWEET SUSTAINABILITY
Diving deeper into the chocolate category, our research explored the impact of three key claims across the category: environmental claims (carbon neutral, ethically sourced, made with renewable energy, etc.), absence of artificial ingredients, and fair trade.
