As sustainability professionals, we’ve been talking for years about how consumers are increasingly influenced by values and sustainability.  We search the data for proof points that people would prefer to buy from a more sustainable company. Indeed, even when we find the proof points, we also find a large action gap between what people say and what they do.

We think the action gap is about to get smaller, due to a set of trends and the context of the pandemic.

The pandemic has shaken the mental health and emotional well-being of people everywhere. It also has caused many people to consider more carefully what they value most: family; friends; health — and savings, if possible. As a result, consumers are paying increased attention to companies that treated their customers and employees well during the pandemic.

The importance people place on values in purchasing has increased. Even a global pandemic and economic trouble couldn't push values out of people's minds. As the pandemic surged around the world, stock-art giant Getty Images wanted to know whether it rendered everything else irrelevant. It combed its own vast customer database of more than a billion image searches, then commissioned a third-party survey of more than 10,000 people across 25 countries, conducted in more than a dozen languages.

Sustainability was, they learned, trending upwards "quite against expectation." And for those respondents who are passionate about sustainability, they said they were willing to pay 10 to 15 percent more for products or services from companies that:

  • use sustainable practices;
  • are aligned with their values;
  • have transparent business practices; and
  • care about the well-being, safety and security of customers.

In other words, even in times of enormous upheaval, people still have, and act on, personal values.

Read the full article about sustainable shopping by Diane Osgood and Daniel Aronson at GreenBiz.