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06.04.2008

“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.

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Sustainability Outlook 2008

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For more Hartman Group articles on SUSTAINABILITY, click here...

04.22.2008 "The Consumer Side of Sustainability"

09.12.2007 "Making Sustainability Matter"

05.24.2007 "Sustainability: Pathways to a Brand Halo"

05.23.2007 "Sustainability: The Corporate Tie-Breaker"

05.22.2007 "Sustainability: What's Green Now?"

Archives »
Click here for an archive of past HartBeat articles

The Sustainability Gap

Bridging the Great Divide Between Consumers and Corporations

The view on the marketplace is much different from the client side of the desk. This is precisely the vantage point Alison Worthington had for 20 years as a marketing executive at Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Colgate-Palmolive. “I was fortunate enough to work on such exciting innovation throughout my career, but I believe the sustainability arena today is like no other time I have seen to reinvent the way we do things for the greater good. Consumers are ready and the capabilities are there,” says Worthington. “I learned early on that strong insights were a great way to create brand differentiation in the marketplace. Consumers are hard to read; it’s truly an art. When I began my career in marketing, wellness and sustainability were in their infancy. There was very little in the way of consumer insights, much less reliable information. Fortunate for me, The Hartman Group was there when no one else was.”

Fortunate for us that Worthington decided to come to the other side of the desk as The Hartman Group’s Managing Director of Sustainability Practices. “I made the switch because for the first time I see a real opportunity for companies to make a huge difference in the sustainability arena. I want to help these companies, just as The Hartman Group helped me understand the sustainability and wellness consumer for so many years, by bringing to them state-of-the-art insights into sustainability.”

If you’ve paid even casual attention to the news, then you know that interest in sustainability is off the charts. Consumers are bombarded with stories on a daily and nightly basis: they see it on television with series such as NBC’s “Green Week” or in print with Vanity Fair’s annual green issue. Seemingly, you just can’t escape green.

Consumer interest in sustainability may be spurred on by the likes of Al Gore talking about global warming in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, while their opinions about sustainability are shaped in part by news accounts of which corporations are (or are not) socially or environmentally responsible.

“I think there is a gap. There are incredible examples of companies striving to ‘do good,’ despite the green washing,” Worthington said. “What is most important to consumers is to see programs and products from companies that are true and authentic to the core and align with their values.”

Sustainability – Looking Ahead to the Future

The challenge companies and their marketers face is largely one of understanding how consumers adopt sustainable products and practices into their lives. “In 2007, our Hartman Report on Sustainability established that people adopt sustainability in an evolutionary sort of way,” said Laurie Demeritt, The Hartman Group President & COO. “They don’t necessarily jump in with both feet; they sort of dip their toe in the water. It’s important to understand what point consumers are at so we aren’t ostracizing them or speaking over their heads or speaking to something they were doing a few years ago.”

The dynamics of sustainability in American consumer culture will continue to change and evolve, just as dynamics behind so-called “green” and “environmental” markets have evolved. As our 2007 Hartman Report on Sustainability highlighted, we are currently experiencing a significant cultural shift in which consumers will continue to adapt their behavior to align with companies, products, and services they find to be relevant to their current lifestyle.

Yet, sustainability interests, involvement and initiatives are not static. Consumers and corporations appear to be moving at a rapid pace with regard to incorporating sustainability behaviors and practices into their respective lifestyles. Signs of this can be seen in the explosion of the organic market and now a groundswell of interest in local, fair trade, ethical consumption, reducing carbon footprints and a host of issues surrounding environmentally friendly products and concern for which corporations are more (or less) socially responsible. With all this activity on so many different fronts, how does a company make sense of what’s going on?

“This is where The Hartman Group can help,” says Worthington. “With our upcoming study, Sustainability Outlook 2008, we are going to build on our understanding of how consumers are moving through and to sustainability and then we are going to flush out this idea around social sustainability. We are going to give our clients some good examples of how to meet consumers’ expectations on the full spectrum of sustainability – economic, cultural and social, as well as environmental.”

Companies are still grappling with understanding what consumers are looking for and if consumers will reward them for their “green” efforts. “Over the years, The Hartman Group has heard loud and clear from consumers the desire to live more sustainably. Through our ethnographic research, we found that consumers are confused and are looking to companies to provide a laser-focused direction on how their products and services will do that,” says Worthington.

Conscious Connections

The Hartman Group has always known there was a connection between consumer motivations and beliefs that radiate out from concern for personal and family health and extend through to concern for one’s community and finally outward to a larger global or earth concern. Many people within the industry have this long-held belief that sustainability is about being green and it's all about the environment. “What we’ve found in our past research and what we will explore in our 2008 study, is that there is a huge component that has to do with community,” added Demeritt. “It’s about understanding how to connect with consumers emotionally. There aren’t a lot of companies or organizations that are talking about that because they are jumping on the environment bandwagon. We are going to explore those trade-offs with the new study.”

This insight is key because consumers do not have a very deep level of knowledge of sustainability, but that by no means serves as a barrier for them to participate. It is similar to what The Hartman Group has found in a lot of other health and wellness categories: consumers may not be able to articulate what “sustainability” means, but they can say what it represents to them is good health or doing the right thing. But asking them to save the planet is far too big a pill to swallow.

A large number of companies are under the assumption that consumers know all of the details, but the fact is they don’t. This is exemplified in something like carbon emissions. “A lot of companies are saying, ‘Hey we’re going to start telling consumers about our carbon footprint’,” explains Worthington. “Well some consumers are passionate about that, but many others don’t know what that means. So, there is a problem there because they are speaking a language consumers don’t understand or talking about issues consumers aren’t even thinking about. Reused materials, keeping waste out of landfills are much simpler, more pragmatic messages.”

What’s Next for Sustainability and Your Company?

Many policy makers, business leaders and marketers are currently immersing themselves in strategic thinking and planning around sustainability. The key opportunity is to open up the dialogue with the consumer to understand how consumers want sustainability to be portrayed.

Many companies are asking if sustainability will lose relevance in the current economic climate. “Our research says that it is more important than ever before. With all things being equal – price, efficacy, quality – a green benefit can be the tie breaker.”

“Our previous work did a great job of exploring what sustainability means to today’s consumers. Now companies want to know what they should do to respond to the change in the way people are living. Our new study, Sustainability Outlook 2008 will span many product categories and help define the categories where sustainability is most important to consumers and what speaks to them in that category. We will get more specific around notions of where price, packaging and messaging are headed and provide clients with actionable recommendations moving forward.”

For more about The Hartman Group’s Sustainability Outlook 2008 study, please contact:
Blaine Becker
425.452.0818, ext. 124
email: blaine@hartman-group.com

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Can You Guess Which Year This Was?*

*Don't cheat...the answers are at the end of the HartBeat.

Click to enlarge

Harvey Hartman is the focal point of “Green Marketing,” an article appearing in the Orange County Register.

There is a significant market potential for earth-sustainable products. It is not a niche market and it is a market that is still untapped.

Different market strategies must be developed for different consumer segments with regard to the environment.

Most consumers do not include environmental improvements as part of their core purchase criteria.

Environmental initiatives are complex and must be looked at in light of consumers' core purchase criteria, which differ among consumers and change depending on the products they buy.

Consumers need specific, personal reasons if their purchasing behavior is to mirror their attitudes.

Consumers need to understand and believe "quality" is enhanced in the earth-sustainable products they are considering for purchase. This "environmentally added value" concept is imperative for purchases to follow expressed attitudes.

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