Sustainability: CPG Marketing in a Green World

FEBRUARY 2009
EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

IRI's Times & Trends highlights new developments and critical events across all major CPG categories and channels, providing powerful benchmarking data to help guide your strategic decisions. This edition of Times & Trends explores industry performance over the past year, and provides insights on what to expect as 2009 unfolds.

Introduction

Sustainability has established a firm and growing presence in the world of consumer packaged goods.

Efforts go beyond delivering eco-friendly products. CPG companies are working to construct more energy-efficient and “green” manufacturing and retail facilities, leverage environmentally friendly manufacturing processes, and upgrade transportation fleets using low-emitting and fuel efficient vehicles. The end goal is the same across the industry: to minimize environmental impacts and maximize the use of sustainable business practices.

The spectrum of green shoppers is broad, and represents a diverse array of consumer demographics, psychographics, values and beliefs.

The ability to identify key green consumer segments and deliver against diverse and rapidly changing sustainability-related attitudes and behaviors will define the winners of shopper loyalty in an increasingly green CPG world.

This report provides insight into current and emerging sustainability trends that will enable manufacturers and retailers to drive top line growth in the rapidly-evolving green segment of the consumer packaged goods market.

Select Findings

• “Less green” consumer segments are climbing the green adoption curve and spurring growth of eco-friendly products despite adverse economic conditions. Early-adopting “Eco-Centric” consumers have largely saturated their shopping baskets with environmentally-friendly and natural/organic CPG products. While “Eco-Centric” green spending remained flat over the past year, “Respectful Stewards,” newer to the “green scene,” increased green spending by 15% over the same time period.

• Products from cleaning supplies to beverages are being concentrated to minimize environmental impact and maximize consumer appeal. Sales of concentrated liquid laundry detergents are up nearly 400% over last year. Product concentration is permeating new categories as CPG marketers seek to capitalize on cost savings and environmental rewards offered by reduced product weight and smaller packaging sizes.

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See the the complete report in the "Sustainability: CPG Marketing in a Green World" pdf.