INDUSTRY INSIGHT
Sustainability isn’ t the reason people buy
In their book, Clean Winners, IMD Professors, Goutam Challagalla and Frédéric Dalsace, explain how businesses can move beyond simply making products more sustainable, to using sustainability to increase customer value and generate profit. In this feature, they discuss how sustainability isn’ t the reason people buy.
Here is a question worth considering next time you go to the supermarket: when was the last time you bought something primarily because it was sustainable?
Not just sustainable along with everything else you cared about. But sustainable as the leading reason that tipped your decision. For most people, the honest answer is rarely ever. And yet an entire industry of corporate sustainability strategy has been built on the assumption that customers will reliably reward companies for doing good.
And that assumption is costing companies dearly. Over the past five years, we have studied how companies generate real business value from sustainability. We surveyed more than 200 executives, conducted in-depth case studies across B2B and B2C sectors and interviewed more than two dozen C-suite leaders and chief sustainability officers. One finding runs through www. intelligentcxo. com
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