Experience Stern | Faculty & Research

Companies have long complained about the “say-do gap”: Consumers say they want to buy sustainable products and that they’re willing to pay a premium, but don’t actually do so. Yet recent research shows a different say-do gap: consumers are buying, but companies aren’t advertising to them, creating an enormous business opportunity.

Sustainability-marketed consumer packaged goods are responsible for nearly 45 percent of the growth in U.S. consumer packaged goods in the last 13 years, according to new data from NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) in partnership with Circana. Sustainability-marketed consumer packaged goods (CPG) products grew 4.9 times faster than conventional products at a 27 percent premium on average. 

In addition, 85 percent of U.S. consumers agree that they’re more likely to buy a product if the brand engages in sustainable practices, up five percentage points. However, Globescan’s annual survey of consumers finds they’ve become less likely to say brands have reached out to them on sustainability. Last year, only 31 percent of consumers said they had heard a great deal or some sustainability information from brands versus 50 percent  of consumers in 2022.

Read the full Trellis article.
____ 
Tensie Whelan is Distinguished Professor of Practice Emerita and Founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Business. Randi Kronthal-Sacco is a Senior Scholar at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business and Adjunct Professor.