The new consumer dilemma – lean or green?

Macro trends in today’s world have the pow­er to pull and push where peo­ple spend their mon­ey. As a result, con­sumer atti­tudes are con­stant­ly evolv­ing. Over the last few years, for exam­ple, we’ve watched sus­tain­abil­i­ty become a pri­or­i­ty, with eco prod­ucts, ser­vices and expe­ri­ences tak­ing cen­tre stage. And more recent­ly, the ris­ing cost of liv­ing has had a pro­found effect on how shop­pers nav­i­gate their bud­gets.

But how do these trends play out on the ground? Do they con­flict with one anoth­er or com­ple­ment each oth­er? And is it a catch-all sen­ti­ment? New research by lead­ing audi­ence insights com­pa­ny, GWI, throws up some inter­est­ing demo­graph­ic dif­fer­ences in atti­tudes. Around three in 10 gen Z/millennials, for instance, are like­ly to be con­scious of cloth­ing prices, com­pared to just under a fifth of boomers, at 19%. In con­trast, boomers (66%) are ahead of gen Z/millennials (61%) when it comes to con­cerns about the cost of their food shop.

“Lifestyles and dif­fer­ent forms of pur­chas­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty are hav­ing an impact here,” says Jason Man­der, chief research offi­cer at GWI. “Income plays its part too – high­er income groups tend to be more wor­ried about things like trans­port and vaca­tions, where­as low­er income groups are more focused on day-to-day or essen­tial items like cloth­ing, food and hous­ing.”

With prices ris­ing rapid­ly, the most impor­tant fac­tor in con­sumers’ behav­iour when it comes to sus­tain­abil­i­ty is the cost — if it’s seen as green and it doesn’t have a notice­able finan­cial impact on us, then we’re more like­ly to buy it or do it. For instance, across all age groups, a whop­ping 85% of us are recy­cling and near­ly two thirds (61%) are cut­ting our use of plas­tic pack­ag­ing, while 44% are donat­ing house­hold items. How­ev­er, GWI research also reveals that just a fifth of us are chang­ing to green ener­gy providers or buy­ing sus­tain­able cloth­ing, both of which are per­ceived as involv­ing addi­tion­al costs.

“Almost every­one in the UK feels they’re recy­cling or reduc­ing their plas­tic usage, but far few­er of us are doing things that might cost us more, such as buy­ing sus­tain­able cloth­ing or organ­ic food,” says Man­der. “This accords with what we often see in our research, where we find the great­est enthu­si­asm for shop­ping and liv­ing sus­tain­ably in ways that are easy to do, or which bring finan­cial ben­e­fit, for instance, using ener­gy-effi­cient appli­ances.”

This con­flict between doing what is good for the envi­ron­ment and what is good for our out­go­ings is even more sig­nif­i­cant today as con­sumers wor­ry about price hikes and feel the effects of infla­tion. It’s worth not­ing that accord­ing to GWI, near­ly nine out of 10 peo­ple (88%) feel that the cost of liv­ing has increased either “some­what” or “great­ly” com­pared with six months ago.

“What we call ‘lean ver­sus green’ refers to the con­flict between con­sumers’ gen­er­al desire to help the envi­ron­ment and their per­ceived or real inabil­i­ty to fol­low through on that,” explains Man­der. “If you look at our data, the envi­ron­ment is an impor­tant con­cern for the major­i­ty of peo­ple. Some active­ly list it as more of an inter­est than oth­ers do but hard­ly any­one says that they don’t want to do their best for sus­tain­abil­i­ty. How­ev­er, this doesn’t always con­nect with con­sumers’ actions.”

This is espe­cial­ly true when they’re mak­ing pur­chas­ing deci­sions. “You’re stand­ing in the super­mar­ket, look­ing at a more expen­sive green-friend­ly prod­uct ver­sus a cheap­er, not quite so eco-friend­ly prod­uct,” he says. “Which one do you actu­al­ly put in your bas­ket? That’s the dilem­ma. How do you fol­low through on your aspi­ra­tional behav­iour to be green? You become a con­tra­dic­to­ry con­sumer – you want to do one thing, but you actu­al­ly find your­self doing the oth­er.”

How can mar­keters help their brands by help­ing con­sumers to man­age the con­flict between shop­ping sus­tain­ably and eco­nom­i­cal­ly so that they can make choic­es that fit with their ethics – and their bud­gets?

“Brands have a role to play by mak­ing it eas­i­er for peo­ple to feel good about them­selves because they feel that they’re fol­low­ing through on their ide­alised inten­tions when it comes to sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” says Man­der. “What we find very con­sis­tent­ly is that con­sumers expect brands, gov­ern­ments and the rest of soci­ety to make it eas­i­er for them to live sus­tain­ably. This means that to appeal to cus­tomers and reas­sure them, brands real­ly have to empha­sise their green cre­den­tials and demon­strate all the steps that they’re tak­ing to improve their sup­ply chains and to make their pack­ag­ing more sus­tain­able.”

This action by mar­keters can make a con­sumer feel good about choos­ing their brand. “It can act as an impor­tant dif­fer­en­tia­tor,” he explains. “When you’re faced with two sim­i­lar prod­uct offer­ings, then the one with the obvi­ous green cre­den­tials can sway you and make you feel that you’re doing the right thing.”

Con­sumers are increas­ing­ly aware of green­wash­ing, warns Man­der. Only 12% of UK con­sumers say that a brand mak­ing char­i­ta­ble dona­tions is impor­tant to them. That should act as a warn­ing to any brand think­ing that dona­tions and feel-good activ­i­ties else­where will off­set the need to take mean­ing­ful action with­in their sup­ply chain and pro­duc­tion process.

Brands that are seen to be mak­ing a claim that isn’t strict­ly true — or that is head­line-grab­bing but isn’t rel­e­vant to their busi­ness — will suf­fer, espe­cial­ly as con­sumers often use social media to express their views. Trans­paren­cy and hon­esty are essen­tial here.

How­ev­er, when a brand offers good val­ue for mon­ey and its green cre­den­tials are clear­ly rel­e­vant, vis­i­ble and have real depth and integri­ty, the result, accord­ing to Man­der, can be good for them, good for the con­sumer – and good for the plan­et.

To find out more, vis­it gwi.com

Pro­mot­ed by GWI