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 of 5G; the way we view convenience in our daily lives; and the need for our purchases to be instantly available. But the topic of discussion that really grabbed the audience was sustainability.

It doesn’t matter what type of business you are in – sustainability requires our attention. It is a broad-ranging topic, and I believe that data and analytics play an important role not just in the debate, but in helping the industries we operate to navigate it effectively.

As always, there are trends in public opinion that help to shape our society, and the memorable image of an ocean of plastic in a BBC documentary helped to bring a complex issue to life, making it personal for viewers. From then on, it has gained momentum. Our role as data analysts is to see if these big topics are not only changing attitudes, but also whether they translate through into behaviour. It is by analysing these attitudes that we understand the expectations of shoppers and consumers.

Understanding the influencers that are making changes will be vital to all brands in any sector. Behaviour is changing. Consumers are more likely than ever to consider waste, sustainability and brand reputation before making a purchase and brands and retailers will need to act on this information.

There’s a big role for the market research industry to play in providing the data that gives more transparency to the debate. To date, the question of sustainability means being blinded by scientific fact or fiction, dependent on your view. Data analytics means we can cut through with data that illuminates what we buy, what we throw away and, from that, how we – as consumers – contribute to a global problem.

Through this lens, it will be easier for business and the ‘average’ person to digest as we personalise the story and bring the debate much closer to what we all do at home. Nielsen gives data to the United Nations as part of the sustainability debate, and I only see contributions to this type of work becoming more important for UK data organisations.

Historic behaviour is one thing, but analytics also needs to forecast what the outcome of our consumption patterns will mean. There is already a debate about whether we have gone beyond reasonable levels of consumption in many areas of our daily lives. But as new patterns of behaviour develop – for example, consuming more meat substitutes, the removal of plastic and the move to electric cars – our industry must call out what impact it is having. We will need to predict the good and the bad of these changes, by drawing on quality data to enable robust predictions that support industry in making changes for good.

This will take more than us producing a simple line chart. Our ongoing homework is to give a clear and transparent message on consumption and its impact, which will be essential to cut through the sustainability noise and provide the industry with guidance from which we will all benefit.

James Oates is UK analytics director at Nielsen and an Impact columnist.

This article was first published in the April 2020 issue of Impact.