Guest post by Jeffrey Hollender
A new survey by the consulting firm Accenture finds that consumer demand for green products is outpacing supply.
While price premiums for green products have not disappeared, one-third of the businesses in the study said they could not keep up with customer demand for sustainable products and services.
The survey of 250 senior executives in the U.K., U.S., Japan, Germany, France, China, Brazil and India, found that 83% of respondents viewed spending on sustainability as an investment rather than a cost.
The vast majority of businesses said sustainability was vital to future growth and around 62% said their sustainable investments were motivated by customer expectations for sustainable products and services and the opportunity to drive growth.
After twenty-five years of selling “green” products, the trend is as welcome as it is surprising. While a wide range of products fits in the loose definition of what qualifies a product as green, perhaps this is a sign that the citizens of our planet are slowly waking up to the perils we face.
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Jeffrey Hollender (@jeffhollender) is founder of Jeffrey Hollender Partners and co-founder and former CEO of Seventh Generation, a leading natural products brand. He is the author of six books including How to Make the World a Better Place, a Beginner’s Guide and The Responsibility Revolution, and he serves on the boards of Greenpeace Fund US, Verite, and the American Sustainable Business Council. To learn more, visit his blog.
