Recently in the Harvard Business Review blog, Andrew Winston wrote an interesting article about a strong shift in the clean label movement. Consumers are growing increasingly uneasy with buying products from companies that don’t disclose much information regarding their products and sustainability efforts, or lack thereof. They are willing to pay more for clean label products, or products that have simplified their ingredient list. Winston argues that this shift in consumer preference comes from Millennials, due to their demand to work for companies with good behaviour and practices. He then presents a list of tough questions for companies:
Winston uses these questions as a guiding point for companies to judge how their company is perceived by the public. He concludes his article by stating that neglecting the clean label movement will cost companies customers, and employees.
A couple of years ago, it seemed that finding a company with good sustainability practices was rare; however, that is certainly not the case today, or in the future. I believe this is, and will continue to be, a domino effect. Many companies look at sustainability and see it as increased costs, and refuse to take part in order to remain competitive within the industry. But, when one or two companies start doing it and remain successful, a couple more follow, and the trend continues until its industry wide. I hope that in a couple years, the cost for using sustainable practices will become similar to a fixed cost for companies, and they will all be on level playing field.