Market Research on Sustainability

NEW YORKMarket research firms Packaged Facts and The Hartman Group joined forces to publish a series of reports tracking current consumer attitudes and shopping behaviors in relation to sustainable consumer packaged goods. The four reports in the just-completed series on Consumers and Sustainability are Food and Beverage, Personal Care, Household Cleaners, and OTC Medications and Supplements.
Sustainability means different things to different people. Asked to identify what the term means to them, consumers most frequently respond the ability to last over time and the ability to support oneself. Sustainability is also strongly associated with environmental concerns, whereby consumers are being challenged to develop and express an eco-consciousness in their daily habits and purchases. But using eco-conscious or green as synonymous with sustainability unduly limits the frame of reference; these older terms fail to acknowledge the variety of social, economic and environmental issues that real-world individuals believe to be important to sustaining themselves, their communities, and society at large.

Within the personal care market, personal health and wellness concerns remain the most important motivation for purchasing sustainable products. Nonetheless, natural remains a meaningful reference point for a variety of sustainable personal care products, even if the term has lost significance in other packaged good categories.

Household cleaning products with a sustainable side have only recently begun to enter the American mainstream. Formerly, the act of cleaning was a form of germ warfare, and entailed a combative relationship between consumers and their environment. Recently, however, more consumers talk about the idea of working with nature, not against it, to naturally restore balance to their home environment.  

At the same time, increased media coverage of tainted medications due to human error and globalized production has generated rising consumer awareness about sustainability issues surrounding over-the-counter medications and supplements. In response to the current economic downturn, many consumers have modified their purchasing behaviors in relation to sustainable products.