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5 Types of Consumer Reactions Sustainability Leaders Need to Understand Better

Corporate sustainability professionals are an interesting breed, aren’t they? Not always the most relatable or immediately exciting crowd, one might say. And not exactly the easiest to listen to, or understand — for most people, anyway.

Sustainability executives and their teams do tend to be brilliant systems thinkers, though, carefully and scientifically considering the whole picture before suggesting ways to improve it. And the solutions they propose to their organizations often have the potential to truly energize the whole brand — whether by reimagining a product or service, redesigning an entire value chain, or reengaging key stakeholders in novel ways. Whether that potential is reached or not depends a lot on how sustainability leaders convey their ideas to Marketing, Brand Strategy and other key teams.

One of the quickest shortcuts to getting desired buy-in is by communicating, convincingly, how things would play out in the face of consumers. How would consumers react to a new sustainability-driven initiative or product? How would they compare it to previous work or work by other brands? Would this new business model make enough sense to people? What would Millennials think? What would Generation Z say? Here are five types of consumer reactions that sustainability leaders would be wise to understand deeply.

Quite a few companies are considering closing critical material loops in favor of circular business models. Whether we’re talking about food, packaging, clothes, shoes, electronics, home improvement, or anything else, there is no shortage of smart proposals in the direction of a circular economy. Ambitions to be net positive are growing, too, gradually turning into a trend in their own right. Some brands are already taking very specific actions toward forward-looking frameworks such as these, and yet consumer insights around them tend to be lagging. Luckily, sharp minds at Forum for the Future, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) and Dragon Rouge are now taking this on with a new level of dedication. 2. ### Reactions to new forms of corporate diplomacy

Many multinationals are struggling to win the strategic competition for the trust of external stakeholders, especially local communities in locations far from their HQ or the home market. Often stakeholder groups in such locations differ significantly in values from said multinationals — sometimes due to differences in understanding of how market economies are supposed to function, sometimes due to differences in hopes and fears for the future, and so on. Too often we see brands attempting new forms of engagement — or “corporate diplomacy” as Witold Henisz’s fantastic new book refers to it — without a careful examination of reaction to previous or similar cases. 3. ### Reactions to shared value creation

Do we know to what extent consumers are noticing and appreciating the range of shared-value activities leading brands are engaged in? Does unprecedented levels of collaboration in the supply chain (as in the cases of Interface, Unilever or Marks & Spencer, for example) get noticed and appreciated? Does the fact that GAP raised the minimum wage of its employees, or that H&M is pushing the national governments of Cambodia and Bangladesh to mandate a wage increase, move these brands’ customers? We know Fair Trade and a few others have committed resources to studying some of it, but I still haven’t seen focused enough research comparing and contrasting multiple types of shared value creation. Needless to say, the list of issues goes on, including gender equality, youth employment, health, mobility and so forth. How do they all rank from the point of view of local consumers, and why? 4. ### Reactions to sub-trends of technological and cultural megatrends

Empowered by connectivity and the vast amounts of information that comes with it, people around the world are increasingly aware of social and environmental challenges. Not only that, but we’re also seeing a range of emergent social trends resulting from efforts to crowd-source solutions. The quickly growing sharing economy is one of many examples of just that. User-generated content on YouTube and social media is another. However, it strikes me that brands rely too much on generalizations about those emerging consumer trends and don’t dig deep enough in the sub-forces that drive them. Researchers who are charting new territory to help the Sustainable Brands community correct that include Havas Media, Accenture, Wolff Olins, Sustainly, Jeremiah Owyang and Ty Montague. 5. ### Reactions to the life cycle impacts of specific materials

Here, again, we often run into the problem of clichéd or generalized insights, typically resulting from survey questions that are too broad. Sure, people’s appreciation and willingness to pay for organic food, healthy ingredients and energy-efficient appliances is growing. But is there a way to see if people empathize with some of the harder choices product innovators have to make, such as picking between two ‘sustainable’ options with different life cycle implications (compostable bags vs. paper bags, anyone?)? It’s hard to probe consumers on these questions, but still worth trying. It could be a fascinating extension to already-excellent research insights from folks such as Nielsen, BBMG, GlobeScan and National Geographic, among others.

What if …, right? Well, the questions raised in this post have been among those the Sustainable Brands community has been asking, and answering, all year long under the theme “Reimagine, Redesign, Regenerate.”

Our next stop: SB’14 London, November 3-5. Experts on all of the questions raised here, and more, will be on hand to share, inspire and further help build a global community of unabashedly optimistic, pragmatic changemakers.