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Growth Trends 2022: Eco Tipping Point

The tipping point for brands to embrace the planet has happened. For brands to create something truly meaningful and contribute to real positive change is ever more important. However, achieving cut through with brilliant creativity and real action is a must in the sea of eco wallpaper.

Escalating fears

In just 5 years the number fearful of climate change has rocketed by 146%, moving up 7 places to become the UK’s second biggest fear, whilst the number fearing pollution has spiraled by 125%. Across 14 other fears being monitored over this period no others have increased with such scale including fear of gender and racial discrimination, job loss, theft, or cybercrime.

Companies, brands and people have already been responding to climate change, but the shift is now from a relatively niche audience paying attention to a mainstream audience taking action.

Climate change a real and present fear which has got closer

Fears change depending on experiences of external factors and the impact of Climate change is certainly becoming more visible than ever before. 2020 was one of the warmest ever years for the UK, as well as one of the wettest – moderate British weather is becoming a thing of the past. We are no longer just watching the news and seeing far-flung climate catastrophes such as the Australian bushfires or California’s wildfires. We’re now seeing and feeling climate change influenced events taking place much closer to home, for example July’s London and Peterborough flood events that brought despair to British homes and businesses. Experiencing weather changes as well as living with COVID-19 has served to accelerate awakenings to just how interconnected with our planet we are.

Humans need compelling reasons to change behaviour, we are creatures of habit and behavioural science has proven this. Yet change is happening, people are adapting lifestyles to reduce their impact on the planet, and they expect companies and brands to make adjustments too. Consumers are more overtly signalling their values with their purchases, and brands that signal their eco-credentials will gain more competitive advantage and prosper in the long term.

Shifting behaviour from intent to action

At Wavemaker we’ve seen more people tell us about their little shifts in behaviour. Nuggets of positive eco-behaviours are becoming mentioned more frequently and spontaneously in our qualitative groups signalling the changes that are taking place in homes across the country.  Recently we’ve heard statements such as:

“I’ve switched to powder from liquid as it’s in a box”

“I’m going vegan for two days a week as we just need to eat less meat and dairy”

These changes may be small, but they are a movement. And they encourage others to adopt the same behaviours, before moving on to the next change and then the next.

Acting through purchase

Looking at where people are choosing to spend their pounds is another key barometer of change and it’s a huge signal of when people move from an attitude to an action. The Ethical Consumer Report 2020 found that by year end 2019, ethical consumer spending and finance in the UK reached record levels of £98bn. Overall, the UK’s ethical market grew by almost 15%, an increase of almost £11bn between 2018 and 2019 across all categories covered by the report including food and home, travel and transport. Barry Clavin, Co -Operative Food surmised:

“This is the 21st consecutive year of sales growth well above inflation and demonstrates an ongoing encroachment of ethical products and services into most retail consumer markets,” 

We know that 48% of all adults say they consider the environmental impact of their decisions
all or most of the time and that 56% say sustainability is important when purchasing fashion items with 69% donating to a charity shop and 41% buying second-hand fashion in the last 12 months.

There’s a huge swathe of the population that The Foresight Factory has identified as ‘eco nudged’ representing 43% of consumers and outweighing the 29% identified as ‘eco warriors. And, combined, these two groups far outweigh the ‘disengaged’. With mounting evidence that eco-friendly consumers are now mainstream consumers, brands sustainable practices shouldn’t just be communicated to those identified as particularly eco-aware.

Brands are already responding to this behaviour

By baking sustainability into internal policy and operating systems, by nodding to it in comms, by playing lip service to it.

But it’s the ones who are really being creative and who put action where others put words which will win:

Through radical partnerships: Mastercard partnered with Doconomy, the fintech business and brand that limits consumption based on carbon footprint, to set new global standards with a carbon calculator

Through big CSR ideas: Knorr worked to create sustainable food gardens built on top of Egypt’s arid landscape. All the food was purchased by Knorr, it earned +$3m in earned media and became part of the Egyptian government’s sustainable development plan.

Through smart statements: The ‘Ryman Eco’ font is said to be ‘the world’s most sustainable font’ owning to its ink and makeup.

Through redesigning product and packaging: The Saltwater Brewery in America’s edible plastic beer can rings address reduce plastic waste and aren’t dangerous to wildlife.

 

Implications for brands:

  • Act now to retain and drive growth from the awakened mainstream audiences with creative action
  • Category should not be a barrier; consumers are making changes in their everyday purchase decisions. Once these purchasing behaviours are habitual, they will become hard to break, and the opportunity missed.
  • Consider new radical partners who will help take you to new places.

Read the 2022 Growth Trends Report in full.

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