Ep. 270 Research: Consumers Are Buying More Sustainable Products

I’ve been thinking of how the pandemic pulled the trigger as consumers and changed our habits.

Having plenty of informal and casual conversations with my friends, we had the conclusion of how important it is to take care of ourselves, our relatives, and the planet as well.

Products that have sustainability initiatives have continued to grow during the COVID-19 pandemic, capturing a 17% market share during the first half of 2020, according to research from IRI and The Stern Center for Sustainable Business at the University of New York, published on the Food Business News.

Products marketed in sustainability experienced a 56% increase in sales during the second half of March 2020. It means that more than half of consumers said they are buying more or as many organic products as before COVID-19, and 7 in 10 said they are buying more or as many organic products.

According to the Harvard Business Review article: Actually, Consumers Do Buy Sustainable Products, products with a sustainability claim on-pack accounted for 16.6% of the market in 2018, up from 14.3% in 2013, and delivered nearly $114 billion, up 29% from 2013. Most important, products marketed as sustainable grew 5.6 times faster than those that were not. In more than 90% of the CPG categories, sustainability-marketed products grew faster than their conventional counterparts. 

Today, my guest is Randi Kronthal-Sacco, Senior Scholar, Marketing and Corporate Outreach for the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business; she shares with us the outcomes of an interesting report she co-wrote with Tensie Whelan for Harvard Business Review; «Research: Actually, Consumers Do Buy Sustainable Products.»