The Harman Group recently released a report on consumer perceptions of “sustainability“. It makes for some interesting reading. Hat tip to the Organic Consumers Association.
According to the report released by The Hartman Group the term “sustainability,” while widely used by the media and industry, has little to no meaning to consumers, they ascribe very different personal meanings to this term. The newest report released by The Hartman Group, The Hartman Report on Sustainability: Understanding the Consumer Perspective, examines how public perception of sustainability affects consumer behavior.
According to The Hartman Report on Sustainability, while most consumers have a limited understanding of the broad concept of sustainability, consumer engagement can be described in varying degrees of “sustainability consciousness.” This refers to the way people link everyday life to “big” problems (e.g., food, water and air quality). The report finds that 72% of US consumers believe their purchases have significant impact on society. Additionally, a full 71% say they are “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to pay a 10% premium for sustainable products.
Now, one of our basic principles is that all the products we carry are sustainable, so this article was of big interest to us. Short bit of “shop talk” – Months ago, Kate told me to take the word “sustainable” off of our marketing material, and to replace it with “Earth Friendly”, She felt that sustainable was too much of a “buzz word” and that Earth Friendly had much more meaning.
Even so, this issue of sustainability struck a chord with me. What does it mean to be live or to work sustainably? Can we live both a good life and a sustainable life? Do we have enough information to make the right choices? How do we make the trade offs?
I think sustainability has a lot of different levels – Personal, business, and ecological.
Back when I was working in in High Tech, I remember thinking how some of the companies I was working for were simply not sustainable businesses. The constant drive to have each quarter top the previous quarter, and to meet the analyst’s expectations (known as “the street”) drove management to do some fairly ridiculous things. It was behavior that was ultimately bad for the company, but in the short term, it kept the stock price up.
On a personal level, I encountered much of the same. Frequently, during this period, I worked 80 to 90 hour weeks. Clearly, this was not a personally sustainable pace and led to health problems and something approaching a breakdown.
Over time, I learned how to live, and how to grow a business at a much slower pace. My new pace allows me to spend time with my family, and to take care of myself. It also allows us to build the business by laying down solid foundations in terms of policies, business practices, customer service, and employee relations. Because we are not out for the quick buck, we can take a longer term view.
It seems to me that there are analogies in the environment and in politics. Simply put, sprints are not sustainable. In our world, in our society, we have been conditioned to seek the quick hit, the fast return. But a sprint is not sustainable. In order to build anything that is going to last, you almost have to go slow.
Of course, this is no guarantee of success. I could live a healthy, sustainable life style and die tomorrow. In anything we do, there is risk. But if you want to build something for the long term, go slow