Shoppers say they want sustainable goods, but won't pay more
By Richa Naidu and Helen Reid
LONDON (Reuters) — Consumer goods makers and retailers investing in sustainably made products after years of shopper outcry, say they face an uphill struggle convincing people to switch when those products cost more or look inferior.
Shareholders, consumers and regulators have pressured companies — from Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB) and Nestle to Walmart (NYSE:WMT) — into spending billions of dollars on more sustainable supply chains to produce less environmentally harmful products.
But when push comes to shove, the companies sometimes find consumers aren't buying them.
«There is a gap between what people say they want and what they actually do at the purchasing point — this is a difficulty for us,» Oriol Margo, EMEA sustainability transformation leader at Kimberly-Clark, said on Thursday at the Reuters IMPACT conference in London.
«It feels like our consumers are asking for sustainability but they are not looking to compromise on price or quality.»
Kimberly-Clark, which makes Kleenex tissues and Huggies diapers, has in recent years tried to use more recycled fibres in its products, but shoppers sometimes see them as lower quality.
As of the end of 2022, Kimberly-Clark has reduced its Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 42% and emissions from Scope 3 by 10.8% globally compared to 2015. It overhauled its supply chain to source about 90% of its tissue fibre from «environmentally preferred» sources, it said in a sustainability report.
Scope 1 refers to a company's direct emissions, Scope 2 to indirect emissions from purchased energy while Scope 3 refers to all other indirect emissions, for example from a company's third-party suppliers.
A joint study by consultant McKinsey and data firm
Read more on investing.com
