Climate change and sustainability is finally at the top of political agendas, with Boris Johnson urging us all to ‘grow up’ and ‘come of age’ during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly this week.
At Directions, we've observed how engagement in sustainability issues has increased over the years, and how the pandemic has played a big part in accelerating ethical and environmental consumerism. We feel that there are various contributing factors, such as increased local shopping and a desire to support one’s community, greater awareness of the natural world through spending more time at home, as well as heightened media coverage of climate change. Indeed, a 2020 survey by Accenture reports that 60% of global consumers are now making more environmentally friendly, sustainable, or ethical purchases since the start of the pandemic, and that nine out of 10 are likely to continue doing so.
However, this is a complex subject and being sustainable, ethical, and environmentally friendly means lots of different things. Indeed, our qualitative research often highlights that it can mean different things to different people (e.g. reducing plastic, buying locally, purchasing organic, reducing meat consumption). A 2021 Deloitte study exploring sustainability and consumer behaviour amongst UK consumers indicates that avoiding single-use plastics is the most common way people demonstrate their commitment, with 61% saying they have cut back. A focus on seasonality (49%) and buying local goods (45%) are the next biggest areas of focus.
However, not everyone is fully embracing sustainable practices. The same Deloitte study highlights that lack of interest is the key barrier to change at 22%, followed by expense (16%), and not having sufficient information (15%). Interestingly, around half of shoppers would be willing to take more responsibility if they had the ‘right’ knowledge. Certainly, a lack of information can make it difficult to fully judge a product’s ethical credentials; for example, a product might use recycled plastic but have a high carbon footprint.
It therefore seems logical that many consumers would appreciate labelling that provides more information as to a product’s ethical credentials. Carbon labels have already been introduced by some brands such as Oatly and Quorn – driven by consumer demand and increasing pressure to meet decarbonisation targets. However, this doesn’t measure the product’s total environmental impact. We, therefore, wonder whether Foundation Earth’s traffic light style front of pack environmental scores (weighted 49% to carbon and 17% each for water usage, water pollution and biodiversity loss) represent an optimal labelling system. It is due to be pilot launched in the Autumn, and we’re interested to see if it will help or hinder consumers.
Directions plans to conduct a small scale proprietary research to explore the value of on-pack environmental labelling later this year – we’ll keep you posted!
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