Why making your product (actually) sustainable will benefit your business

With growing awareness of the climate emergency, people are increasingly conscious of living more sustainably. This means eating, shopping and travelling in a way that has a minimal impact on the planet. Deloitte has conducted a comprehensive survey into consumer behaviour and their findings might be of interest to you.

The headline is: people want to live more sustainably.

In the last year, there’s been a large increase in the number of people who’ve adopted a more sustainable lifestyle and are consciously reducing their carbon footprint. Compared to 2021, consumers have significantly increased their focus on:

• buying only what they need

• reducing their meat consumption

• opting for low carbon emission modes of transport

40% have chosen brands that have environmentally sustainable practices / values.

34% have stopped buying certain brands or products due to concerns about their ethics / sustainability.

It takes more than just saying you’re sustainable

The study found that only 1/4 people see labelling a product as sustainable as proof that the product actually is sustainable. And nearly 50% don’t know what commitments businesses have made to being more sustainable or don’t trust businesses are telling the truth about climate change and sustainability practices. Brands need to prove, with hard evidence, what makes them sustainable.

You need to actually be sustainable

Consumers are savvy, they’re hot on greenwashing and want to know exactly what makes a product or business actually sustainable. Businesses must prove they’re committed to protecting the planet through honest, transparent evidence - adding carbon labels to your products is a simple way to show you take your carbon impact seriously.