Sustainability: Retail’s Latest Feature

Consumers are putting their money where their values are. The purchases people make often (or avoid) tell a much greater story about what someone stands for, what they prioritize and what kind of progressive impact the company they choose to support has on the world. Is a company addressing social inequality, for example? Or global warming? A growing number of consumers want to know the answers, especially younger, more affluent ones who are financially ascendant.

A recent customer survey by furniture reseller Chairish showed that most consumers — 70 percent — say addressing climate change is of utmost importance.

On that note, more retailers are creating and executing strategies to up their sustainability game. And they’re looking to involve consumers so everyone’s on the same journey together.

Giving Consumers Money for Going Green

For example, take Aspiration, a California-based online bank and personal finance company. “You can change Climate Change,” reads Aspiration’s homepage at the time of this writing. “There’s a good chance your bank is using your money to fund oil projects that destroy the climate,” the website continues, urging consumers to put their money where their values are.

Aspiration — a brand with Leonardo DiCaprio on its board of advisors — gives customers up to 5% money back when they purchase from a company that’s part of the Conscious Coalition, including Warby Parker, Blue Apron, Reformation, TOMS and others. And 10% back on debit purchases at businesses that do so.

This kind of model is proving successful to drive consumer loyalty and greater revenue levels. When a firm such as a credit card company goes green and a card donates a certain amount of money to help out an environmental cause, this results in more consumer purchases made overall, as Mastercard told PYMNTS.

Mastercard is aware, for instance, that plastic card manufacturing is very harmful to the environment. (Six billion plastic cards are created annually.) Although creating a viable non-plastic alternative that’s more sustainable and durable has proven challenging since plastic cards are so affordable and easy to make, said Mastercard, the company is working on it. And it’s still looking to reduce its carbon footprint.

The good news, explained Mastercard, is the cost of switching to a non-plastic option will drop once industries support doing so while leveraging scalable technology to simplify the task.

Consumers Push Companies to Go Greener, Faster

“The consumer increasingly cares about sustainability,” said John Donahoe, CEO of Nike, a company that’s betting on the fact that consumers perhaps now care more about their new shoes being sustainable versus if they have a brand-name logo.

Nike’s competitors are also getting into sustainability: Adidas funded the creation of a high school football field in Miami made out of plastic waste — nearly 1.8 million plastic water bottles, that is.

Similarly, the company Under Armour decided to use recycled packaging and make sure products are shipped without excess cases or cartons.

Going Green is a Mindset

Another company looking to create a consumer experience around the importance of sustainable consumption is Thrive Market, the online grocery store offering vegan, vegetarian, and other sustainable goods via subscription. As Thrive Market told PYMNTS, “We focus a lot of our energy on differentiation and focus on our niche. We create an avenue for customers who are passionate about wellness and conscious consumption.”

To compete with Amazon successfully means offering the consumer better experiences, said Thrive Market. Like Under Armour and so many other companies now, Thrive Market seeks to reduce packaging by eliminating the need to send out multiple smaller boxes versus one big box.

Have you ever received an Amazon package with multiple items shipped in different boxes when they all could have fit into one package, and felt irritated by this shipping decision? This negative emotional reaction may cause consumers to do business elsewhere.

“It’s really important from a sustainability standpoint to ship a full box,” Thrive Market emphasized.

Go Bigger

Meeting consumers’ sustainability needs as a retailer means understanding consumers have different views. A typical consumer may not know a company’s true sustainability pain points — and even if he or she did, different things would resonate with different people. Although one consumer, for example, may be mostly focused on what a company’s carbon footprint looks like and how to improve it fast, another may think the company’s labor practices are unethical and may require more urgent and immediate addressing.

In short, retailers must work to do their part across the board. And not be afraid to go deeper when doing so.

“There’s been a trend in which companies communicate their focus areas and their wins, but shy away from the more troubling spots,” Alex Medeiros, general manager at Sir Kensington’s, told PYMNTS. Medeiros also mentioned packaging, as well as food ingredients, and nutrition, as key consumer focuses in the grocery space. Also of top consideration for consumers, he said, is the people behind the company and how they’re being treated. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are top concerns for his company.

Unilever, a company Alex also works with, found that its most sustainable brands shot up nearly 50% faster than the rest of the company – while providing most – 70% – of Unilever’s turnover growth.

Retailers must change “the way it’s been done” while also bringing their ever-conscious consumers along for the ride.