Can businesses do more to engage consumers with nature?
Over 80% of UK and US consumers enjoy being in nature and appreciate the impact it has on their mental and physical wellbeing.
This is a key outtake from BRODIE’s soon-to-be-released annual Sustainability Sentiment Tracker which aims to uncover what consumers really think about sustainability through objective and broad analysis. For the first time this year, we included nature-related questions – and to mark World Environment Day, we wanted to share some of our findings.
Consumers told us they care about the natural world, but they also indicated they would be receptive to hearing about how businesses, through corporate sustainability commitments, are taking action to protect it.
Research in past years has indicated some consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products...although this year, with the cost-of-living biting, price is the dominant purchase driver for most. But concerns about sustainability are not dead and buried. McKinsey and NielsenIQ‘s 2023 research found that CPG products making ESG-related claims grew faster than those that did not, analysing findings over five years from 44,000 brands across 32 food, beverage, personal care and household categories. Products that made ESG claims averaged 28 percent cumulative growth over just 20 percent for products that made no claims.
A clear long-term business case for action on sustainability exists, allied to the rapidly accelerating need for supply chains to adapt and mitigate to the risks of climate change and biodiversity loss: the sobering fact is that we’ve lost more than two-thirds of global wildlife since the first World Environment Day in 1972.
So, what is stopping corporates from taking faster, more ambitious action to tackle nature loss – and telling consumers about it?
Challenge 1: Where to begin
Nature is, of course, highly complex. It covers living organisms and their interactions on land, in the ocean, in freshwater and in the atmosphere. Business practices can impact negatively on ecosystems in a wide variety of ways, ranging from changes in land use and destruction of habitats such as deforestation, through to water pollution from nutrient run-off to the extraction and depletion of natural resources.
To act responsibly in the face of this complexity, businesses must first understand their ‘nature footprint’ or how they impact and depend on nature across every step of their value chain. This process provides companies with a longlist of potential issues that can then be prioritised for action and investment. Instructions for businesses on how to do this are being developed by both the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures and the Science Based Targets Network. [HB1] [LL2]
Assessing a company’s nature footprint is a step towards defining sustainable or remediating actions based on rigorous evidence and can later be used to substantiate consumer facing claims. It’s important that this process is comprehensive and holistic so that companies can be confident their actions will have the desired outcomes.
Challenge 2: Consumer understanding is low
BRODIE polled over 2,000 consumers and carried out dedicated focus groups in both the US and the UK for this year’s Sentiment Tracker. We discovered that consumer awareness of business operations and their impact on nature and ecosystem services is very low. Only one focus group participant had a vague understanding of the term “biodiversity”.
In the UK, when asked which businesses are harmful to nature, focus groups agreed that manufacturing, construction, and heavy industrial processes had harmful effects. However, none of the consumers called out the significant role of mass food production as one of the leading causes of nature loss, despite the outsized impact that this sector has. A recent report by the global investor coalition Finance for Biodiversity, found that just 20 food producers make up nearly a fifth of the biodiversity impact within a group of the 250 biggest contributors globally.
Communications and marketing professionals will need to be careful about how they communicate these complex issues. Clear and simple messaging will be essential and potentially some degree of consumer education.
Challenge 3: The risk of greenwashing is real
Regulators are cracking down on nature-related “greenwashing,” where a company shares misleading messaging presenting themselves as more environmentally friendly than they are. The UK was among the first markets to signal intent to tackle greenwashing through its Green Claims Code in 2021 and since then, both France and the EU have introduced specific regulation addressing greenwashing.
Proposed in March 2023, the broad aim of the new EU directive is to protect consumers from unclear or poorly substantiated environmental claims and sustainability labelling that lack transparency and credibility. While this might seem intimidating, the threat of greenwashing should propel companies to double down on concrete plans and programmes to tackle nature-related impacts. New rules require companies to substantiate any voluntary sustainability claims they make with robust evidence.
This approach should wash with consumers too. Year after year, our Sentiment Trackers found that consumers perceived sustainability claims about tangible actions that had already been carried out more credible and relatable than distant ambitions yet to be achieved.
Companies striving to demonstrate their sustainability credentials must start with establishing strategies, programmes and actions on the ground – and use these to inform their communications.
In summary
While nature loss is a genuine risk for businesses, there’s an opportunity for them to consider too: consumers want to hear about corporate sustainability actions to protect and restore nature.
Long-term growth is available for companies willing to invest in this area. Businesses must establish robust evidence-based strategies and programmes to avoid being called out for greenwashing. Fortunately, consensus has emerged around how to begin: to assess nature footprints and build credible biodiversity strategies and programmes of action on which to base subsequent communications.
Get in touch
At BRODIE, we are closely monitoring developments in this space and advising clients on how to develop impactful nature strategies and partnerships. If you would like to find out more, please reach out.
hello@brodiepartners.com
BRODIE develops sustainability trends and market insights for a number of leading companies. We have also developed a breadth of sustainability strategies and action plans, including executive and stakeholder engagement and communications as well as business analysis and planning.