Over the past several years, sustainability and corporate responsibility in business industries has been a hot topic amongst companies. Company executives not only have to focus on the bottom line, but also on making sure their companies are focusing on social, environmental and economical issues as well.
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A dilemma in switching to fuel sustainability for companies is the increase in costs, in which producing clean and efficient fuel-energy cells is costing more than double the prices of natural-gas energy ($0.14 per kilowatt versus $0.06 per kilowatt). While it seems to be such a clean, simple solution to the emission of pollution and natural gas shortage, fuel cell companies struggle to make a profit due to high production costs. There may be a turning point for the first time in this industry by FuelCell Energy, who is targeting large companies and focused on lowering fuel cell production costs by increasing the amount of production. If this company becomes successful and profitable, then it will create a turning point for other companies as it becomes less expensive to be environmentally responsible.
Large corporations are a good customer segment to target in the fuel cell industries because they can more easily incur these higher costs and they are also the companies that tend to use the most energy. In addition, as the Shared Values reading suggests, companies “must reconnect company success with social progress”. This means that companies not only have to focus on profitability but also how to create a sustainable environment for the business to thrive in, in the future. From a marketing perspective, companies can leverage this as a marketing tactic in differentiation strategy between the company and other top industry competitors because many consumers don’t mind paying slightly more than average prices for a product that is made organically and sustainably.