OPINION10 July 2020
Sustainable analysis
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How can market research promote sustainability and help businesses navigate the subject effectively?
I had one of those lovely moments as a parent recently when homework overlapped with my work. Discussing with my nine-year-old son the benefits of a line chart versus a bar chart was much safer ground than trying to help with prepositions.
A more challenging homework topic is sustainability and, in my house, like many others, it goes beyond a school assignment. Whether it’s an insistence on ditching plastic straws, rejecting plastic water bottles or avoiding palm oil products, there is a genuine passion in my children to change our day-to-day behaviour and contribute to a sustainable ecosystem. The challenge I’m facing at home is much the same as that facing our clients and the industry at large – and it has got me thinking about the role of data analytics in helping us to meet this challenge.
I presented recently to the FMCG industry on key trends that will influence consumer behaviour over the next decade. We covered what will be important: the accessibility ...
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2 Comments
Dr. Stephen Needel
3 years ago
Like most comments on green things, the author makes a set of huge and unproven assumptions: that consumers actually care about sustainability and that CPG/FMCG businesses are going to spend any money that will make them more sustainable without ROI. Neither are very true. It is not MR's job to support (or inhibit) sustainability - it is our job to provide real information for decision makers to do so in this area.
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James Oates
3 years ago
Thanks for the comment on the article. My assumptions about sustainability are drawn from the changing trends in how consumers are actually responding to the question of sustainability and their attitude toward it. As an example at Nielsen we asked a representative group of shoppers about sustainability and half said they would be willing to change brands in supermarkets to be more sustainable which was up almost 20% vs the previous year. At the same time we see an increase in the numbers saying they would be willing to pay more for sustainable brands. As this momentum builds it is my belief that it could and will play a part in how brands and retailers respond. Consumers not just saying but doing will clearly be central to how this plays out in stores and with the supplier community.
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