The key categories where sustainability matters most to shoppers
Earth Day happens once a year, but sustainable practices matter more than ever. Sustainability is increasingly important to grocery shoppers, and it influences their shopping behaviors as they look to reduce environmental impact.
Recent 84.51° research reveals insights into how consumers plan to celebrate Earth Day / Earth Month this year, and the sustainable practices they care about so CPGs can better meet customer expectations.
When thinking about the environmental impact of products — their packaging, whether they’re sustainably sourced/manufactured, and their contribution to the carbon footprint — 21% of consumers say the overall sustainability of the products they purchase at a grocery store is important or very important.
But climate concerns affect certain shopping decisions more than others. More than half of shoppers (51%) are concerned about sustainability as it relates to items at the deli, meat and fish counters. Other food categories where sustainability affects shopper decisions include shelf stable foods (41%) and dairy (40%).
Shoppers also care significantly about the environmental impact of their non-food related purchases. Sustainability affects the purchase decisions of half of shoppers (50%) when they buy household cleaning items and paper products. And more than a quarter (26%) think sustainability is important when buying personal care items. Categories with the lowest levels of concern include Baby care (9%), snacks/candy (20%) and cereal (21%).
Consumers are looking to enjoy Earth Day this year in a variety of ways. Of those consumers planning to celebrate Earth Day/Earth Month, a quarter (25%) say they will do so by spending time participating in outdoor activities such as walking, biking and hiking.
They’ll also be keeping environment-friendly practices in mind: 18% say they will use re-usable bags, 17% will use a refillable water bottle, and 13% plan to ‘reduce, reuse, recycle.’
Visit our knowledge hub
See what you can learn from our latest posts.
