home : hartbeat : crossing-the-gap

11.17.2010

“HartBeat” is The Hartman Group's FREE online newsletter, providing insight, analysis, information and strategy to give business leaders the knowledge and vision to build sustainable brands.

Archives »
Click here for an archive of past HartBeat articles

digg
del.icio.us

reddit
twitter

friendfeed

StumbleUpon

Crossing the Gap

Opportunities in Communicating Sustainability to Consumers

Economic downturn or not, efforts undertaken by industry today to "speak" to consumers through corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability actions remain strong — if not stronger — then ever before. On the consumer side, everyday Americans haven't been immune to the felt environmental effects of the BP oil spill, nor to the rising incidence of messaging and products linking to sustainability. In fact, in 2008/2009, as part of our 20 year-long study of consumer perceptions of sustainability, we saw consumers voicing a sense of their own responsibility as potential agents of change at household, community and global levels (see sidebar). And yet today, our 2010 sustainability study shows that within the ongoing (and still rising) green tide, a consistent gap has emerged where consumers view "green" with different perceptions from the companies from whom they buy goods and services.

This gap is highly ironic, when, considering the scope of CSR efforts and money invested, it's increasingly clear that a vast majority of corporate sustainability activities undertaken by today's companies go relatively unnoticed by consumers. From their perspective, when asked how they visualize companies in the context of sustainability, what gets their attention is how a company treats its employees, distributes wealth within communities, treats animals and finally cares for the environment. Additionally, and importantly, consumers say that personal benefits (e.g., mitigation of health risks, "high" quality, cost savings, etc.) from sustainability is one of the most important facets. And yet, look around at how CSR and corporate sustainability actions are reported in the media and in press releases today: Typically you'll see great emphasis placed on actions undertaken in the environment or in energy, with less emphasis placed on the social actions, community efforts, employee satisfaction or personal benefits companies provide and bring to consumers.

The Green Gap is Historic: From the Brundtland Report to Corporate Corridors

When it comes to the divide between consumers and CSR actions, one element that's forced a wedge between the two is the historical version of sustainability created by various NGOs and related stakeholders, which was in turn adopted by corporations. The term “sustainability” is rooted in the term "sustainable development,” which originated in the history of economic development in the developing world. The concept of sustainable development was the product of the UN-sponsored Brundtland report of 1987: Our Common Future. It was initially defined as: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The Brundtland report was instrumental in forcing aid agencies and lending institutions to recognize the ecological limits to growth and the concept of putting “people first” in global economic development efforts. The larger goal of sustainable development was to ensure that development would “leave the planet to the next generation in no worse state than that in which the present generation found it.” So, “sustainable development” came to represent the unification of 3 “zones of salience”: 1) social progress, 2) environmental preservation and 3) economic development (see sidebar).

Figure 1: Three Traditional Zones of Salience in Sustainability

Source: Adams, W.M. (2006), The Future of Sustainability: Re-thinking Environment and Development in the Twenty-first Century

Sustainability: Not a Household Word

“Sustainability” as a term quickly became shorthand for sustainable development as the concept became ubiquitous in the everyday discourse of various lending agencies, academics, NGOs and governments. Sustainability moved out of the international sphere and into the domestic sphere as NGOs and consultants discovered the applicability of the term in a number of contexts and for a number of causes. It was these groups that introduced the concepts into the corridors of corporations throughout the world; in other words, sustainability did not originate in the consumer world.

The Consumer Side of the Gap

Even if we consider their own roots in sustainability, which include deep connections to “environmental movements” popularized in the 1970s (and dating back to the 19th century), from the perspective of an indigenous consumer impulse, sustainability is not top of mind today, much as we found in 2009 and 2007. For most Americans, the overarching concept of sustainability is too broad to be relevant on a daily basis. In the context of the term, consumers are often overwhelmed with the complexity of expert opinions and what they frequently perceive as contradictory evidence and claims. In fact, most consumers have difficulty identifying significant details of brands or companies linking to sustainability practices.

Our current study, Marketing Sustainability – Bridging the Gap Between Consumers and Companies, finds that sustainability awareness levels have increased by 28% since 2007, to about 7 out of 10 people (69%). Still, only one in five consumers (21%) can identify a sustainable product and even fewer can determine a sustainable company (12%). In other words, the gap between consumer awareness of the term “sustainability,” and identification of “sustainable” products, brands and companies, is the same gap that we described at the beginning of this discussion: Consumers today have little to no ability to point to significant details regarding brands or companies that might have a sustainability halo.

Figure 2: Gap Between Consumer Familiarity and Identification of Sustainable Companies

Source: Marketing Sustainability: Bridging the Gap between Consumers and Companies (2010), The Hartman Group, Inc. Multiyear analysis of our 2010, 2008/9 and 2007 sustainability studies.

When prodded, as they were in our current study, consumers point to companies like REI and Whole Foods as beacons of sustainability, not because they know or love these brands, but because these brands have pervaded the upper-middle class idea sphere as “being good brands”. Related to these equations to sustainability they typically can’t remove quality from the equation: Does it taste good? Will it quench my thirst? Will it relieve my headache? Does it clean my dishes? Is it a great retail experience? Do they sell high quality products?

Except for the most “Core” consumers, the term “sustainability” continues to be outside of most consumers’ everyday vocabulary, and does not include a holistic understanding of the traditional economic, social and environmental zones of salience. Rather, consumers use words like responsibility and transparency and the idea of reciprocity to describe the types of expectations they have for companies. In addition, they are not particularly focused on the environmental zone, but rather on the personal and social zones when it comes to the zones of greatest importance.

Consequently, to leverage sustainability efforts and CSR activities, companies today must communicate their positive impact in what consumers perceive to be their “real” social world. When we speak of the real social world and how connections are made in the minds of consumers between sustainability and “good” companies, those companies and brands perceived by consumers as benevolent – companies that empower workers, provide great benefits, a healthy working environment, and show an overall concern for community and animal welfare – are viewed as “sustainable.” We often see today that this halo of sustainability in turn tends to create the much sought after effects of customer loyalty and even enthusiastic brand evangelists. In essence, consumers prefer to do business with companies that share their values of sustainability: Related to this discussion, we see that when ranking purchase criteria relating to sustainability's four zones and what they believe are important characteristics, just over three out of four consumers (82%) say they are primarily interested in whether companies offer quality products, followed closely by providing safe working conditions for employees (79%). Providing low prices on products and services and good wages and benefits to employees also top out a list of purchase criteria relating to sustainability’s four zones, demonstrating that social and personal benefit criteria are top of mind for consumers today when compared to various environmental activities or economic ones.

Figure 3: Sustainability Purchase Criteria Used by Shoppers in Relation to Perceptions of Companies and Brands

Source: Marketing Sustainability: Bridging the Gap between Consumers and Companies (2010), The Hartman Group, Inc. N=1,961.

Take Away: Crossing the Gap

In our 2009 study, Sustainability: The Rise of Consumer Responsibility, we suggested that while industry uses the concept of sustainability to incorporate economic, social and environmental issues into one neat and tidy concept, most consumers understand the underlying values of the concept to be better expressed in terms of “responsibility,” seeing themselves as potential agents of change at household, community and global levels. Results from this year’s study show that in today’s uncertain economic climate, consumers are attributing sustainability to brands and companies they perceive as “good guys” or good neighbors who follow the “Golden Rule”: Treat others as you would like others to treat you. At the personal and household level, they are looking for brands and companies they can depend on to keep their families safe and healthy (personal), their neighborhoods clean and healthy (environmental), which participate in local activities and the social well-being of their community (social), and which contribute to the economic viability of the community (economic). Brands and companies that are best able to tap into this consumer desire for reciprocity (“the Golden Rule”) are more readily equated in the minds of consumers as sustainable: While not commonly understood or discussed in CSR circles today, providing and communicating a workplace composed of happy, satisfied employees or stating a corporate mission concerned for animal welfare is what’s relevant to today’s consumers and are actions that have an excellent chance of bridging the sustainability gap.

Comment »

The Hartman Group On Sustainability

The Hartman Group first began studying consumer perceptions of sustainability in the late 1980s and revealed opportunities in so-called “green marketing” for diverse clients. In the late 1990s we published our Food and the Environment series, establishing the notable (though not at all exclusive) link between sustainable (or “environmental”) lifestyles, agriculture and food.

Starting in 2007, we began our current series of studies, which examine the World of Sustainability, consumer perceptions of that World, and what leads consumers to participate in that World.

Our most recent sustainability studies include Marketing Sustainability: Bridging the Gap between Consumers and Companies (2010); The Sustainability Marketing Playbook (2010); Sustainability: The Rise of Consumer Responsibility (Published 2009, data collected in 2008); and The Hartman Report on Sustainability: Understanding the Consumer Perspective (2007).

In 2009 and 2010, to account for the consumer side of sustainability, we created a fourth zone of salience, the Personal Zone (Zone of Personal Benefit). The Personal Zone overlaps the Social, Economic and Environmental Zones because without it sustainability loses significance to consumers.

The zone of personal benefit engages with economic, environmental and social areas of sustainability, but connects to responsibility based on how those practices influence consumer perceptions of personal and family well-being.