Search

“Love and justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change; without collective change, no change matters.” — Rev. angel Kyodo williams

In the last part of this two-part article series, we examined how white culture and white privilege impact the ways in which we engage with communities around sustainability. As Rev. williams suggests, to solve the problems of separation, obsessive productivity and exploitation caused by white culture, we need to advance our “inner change work,” which impacts the “outer change work.”

Unlearning white conditioning is an ongoing process — like an intention rather than a goal, you’re never completely done. I’ll be the first to admit I’m still a work in progress here. But here are some ideas on how to get started. 

Mindfulness meditation practice

The same mental process that helps you come back to the present moment when you’re working or feeling stressed can also be used to wake up from thoughts like “that person looks suspicious” when it’s just a person of color walking down the street. (“Suspicious” is a behavior, not a skin color, and sadly, deaths caused by police disproportionately affect people of color.) 

You can’t change what you are not aware of, so the first step to making change happen in your own behavior is to be aware of your inner dialogue. Don’t believe everything you think. Mindfulness meditation practice helps with cultivating more focused attention and relaxed awareness so you can catch white supremacy culture thoughts before they turn into racist beliefs, comments or actions.


Loving-kindness and self-compassion: Appreciate the parts of yourself that you don’t like

The zits, the self-criticism, whatever you don’t like about yourself, you can’t fix it with more self-hatred. (Believe me, I’ve tried.) The Buddha said, “Hatred is not conquered by hatred, but by love alone is healed.” Every major religion talks about the value of unconditional love. While that may sound doable sometimes for people who are suffering, with the abundance of self-criticism that white culture creates, how much unconditional love can you have for yourself? 



If you think you’re smart enough to skip this practice, don’t. Practicing self-compassion when you feel like crap or like you don’t need or deserve it is absolutely critical for having more patience and compassion with the “other” you don’t like — whether that’s a person of a different skin color, religion, political party, or any other category you can come up with that triggers the feeling of “other” for you. The mind that wants to fix and judge yourself is the same mind that wants to fix and judge others.`

As UNtraining co-founder Rita Shimmin put it: 

“Loving yourself is a political act. We are taught not to love ourselves, and from that place we are easily manipulated... Love yourself so much that this love changes the world.” 

If you prefer to look at the science, this University of Sussex research found that seven minutes of loving-kindness meditation was effective at reducing racial bias. 


Practice seeing the “other” as a part of yourself


Is your sustainability work treating people as a resource to be controlled? Does your climate action technology treat nature like a machine to be optimized? What would change if you viewed the “other” (people, nature, etc.) as a grandparent, an uncle, a sister, a niece or nephew, and so forth?


The United Nations has some inspiration here that all religions see nature as an act of divinity that should be treated as such. 

The challenge is to remember that hatred is not ended by hatred, but by unconditional love. Our perceived “enemies” (an opposite political party, a dictatorial leader who is impacting resource flows to other countries, whatever) is also a person who is suffering because they are stuck in the trance of separation culture. When in doubt, go back to No. 1: the inner work.


See mistakes as learning opportunities


No matter how committed you are to being antiracist, to unlearning the white conditioning that contributes to the self/other dichotomy, you’ll probably make a mistake at some point. As Dale Carnegie said, “Look for areas where you can admit error and say so.” If you’re on a subway train and you step on someone’s toes, you apologize. If you say something that’s actually a microaggression and then pretend it didn’t have an impact, it’s like stepping on someone’s toe and then blaming the other person for the pain you caused. If you cause pain, you apologize for the impact (the pain), even if you didn’t intend to cause the pain.

The learning is in how fast you can become aware of the mistake as a learning opportunity, rather than denying or minimizing the impact or putting the focus back on you rather than the person you harmed, even inadvertently. 

Some more helpful resources

Here are few resources I find helpful, from the easier to the more challenging:

• "How to Be an Antiracist" by Ibram X. Kendi. This book covers how racism is endemic to our society: Racism is the “default” – even if you think you are a “good white person” who’s “not racist.”
• Guided meditation recordings. I like those from Nikki Mirghafori when my mind feels particularly self-critical.
• Emotional awareness resources. This blog I wrote is a good starting point. 
• The (re)Biz one-month program. Made for people who want to build a regenerative world and get unstuck from separation mindsets in sustainability work — note that you get $100 off if you mention my name as the referral source.
• UNTraining White Liberal Racism. This is a powerful series of programs over a few years (in six-month increments), which help us un-learn our conditioning that keeps us stuck in separation/white supremacy culture. Note that to avoid well-meaning white folks triggering people of color, they have programs specifically for white folks only to work on our stuff before doing activities with a mixed-race group. Because people of color also may have internalized oppression, they have groups for people of color, Jewish, and Chinese folks to explore cultural conditioning, heal from trauma, and more.

The more we see how white conditioning operates in us, the more we can make choices that are different from what our conditioning wants us to do. Treating ourselves with more kindness and awareness can help us be less reactive and more responsive to the events of life. 

Image credit: Kelsey Krach

Land Acknowledgment: Katharine is a Mayflower descendant who lives and works in unceded Lisjan Ohlone territory, what is now known as Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Piedmont, Emeryville and Albany, California. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands, heal from historical trauma, and facilitate the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. May they be successful in their work!

Organic rice brand Lundberg Family Farms is the latest to drop a new product bearing the Regenerative Organic Certified label. Set to hit store shelves in April, the brand’s new white basmati is the first U.S.-grown rice to be certified by the Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA), and the company is looking to certify all of the organic rice it grows by 2027.  

Unlike certified organic agriculture — which comes with government-imposed regulations in countries around the world — there are no regulatory or legal definitions for regenerative agriculture. It is widely acknowledged to be a set of production practices, such as cover-cropping and low-till practices which rehabilitate soils as well as the surrounding ecosystem. Still, it's often confusing for producers and consumers when there are few methods available to verify regenerative practices or certify products containing ingredients grown this way. 

The ROA launched the Regenerative Organic Certified program in 2017 with the aim of clearing things up. The certification was developed with input from farmers, business leaders, soil scientists, animal welfare experts, and social equity leaders looking to scale regenerative agriculture. It uses the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Certified Organic standards as a baseline, with additional criteria around things like soil health, animal health and social fairness. 

What is regenerative organic agriculture? 

While all regenerative agricultural practices aim to improve soil health, the means by which growers do that can vary from farm to farm. “Regenerative systems are often context-specific, and certification should not be treated as one-size-fits-all. Each region and crop will need to implement different standards based on soil type, weather conditions, ecosystem and crop needs,” said Craig Stevenson, CEO of Lundberg Family Farms, in a statement. 

Regenerative organic methods often include crop rotation, minimal soil disturbance, rotational grazing, and eliminating synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, as well as maintaining land cover through either vegetative covers or mulch. For its part, Lundberg Family Farms increased the use of cover cropping, utilized recycled water for rice cultivation, and expanded wildlife habitat by flooding fields for wintering waterfowl in order to achieve Regenerative Organic Certification.

Regenerative Organic Certified: Does the market really need a new label? 

Intensive industrial agriculture has wreaked havoc on both the world's topsoil and the climate. Some forecasts predict the planet only has 60 years of topsoil left for agricultural production unless growing practices shift dramatically. Additionally, the agricultural sector accounts for 11 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The goal of regenerative organic agriculture is to transform the agricultural industry, turning a problem into a solution. Practitioners aim to improve soils by increasing organic matter and sequestering carbon both below and above the ground through crop cultivation.

The USDA Certified Organic label began as one of the most robust industry standards ever imposed by Congress. But as the certified organic industry has grown, so has fraud and lobbying by large food corporations. This has led to a general public distrust regarding the meaningfulness of the label. Still, the global certified organic food and beverage market topped $200 billion last year and is predicted to grow another 13 percent annually through 2030. 

Lundberg Family Farms was an early supporter of the certified organic movement and participated in the development of the USDA standards. Now, the company's leadership believe the development of regenerative organic standards will “help hold the industry accountable and build consumer trust.” The movement is picking up steam fast: 100 farms and over 700,000 acres were certified as regenerative organic last year, and over 50 brands licensed the label for their products. 

Lundberg’s Regenerative Organic Certified white basmati rice will be available online and at Whole Foods Market nationwide on April 4. It joins a growing list of brands carrying the label — including Dr. Bronner's, Tazo Tea and Patagonia Provisions. Browse more Regenerative Organic Certified products at Patagonia Provisions and in the Regenerative Organic Certified directory. 

Image credit: Lundberg Family Farms

If you’re a white person who cares about the environment and you wonder why there aren’t more Black, Indigenous, or people of color (BIPOC) in your climate tech startup, environmental nonprofit or corporate sustainability program, keep reading. If you’re feeling like you’re struggling with trying to succeed in life, you want to “make a difference,” and not sure why however much money you make or whatever you accomplish doesn’t ultimately satisfy you, this is also for you.

I’ll start off by talking about some core aspects of white culture, white privilege, and how white culture impacts how we engage in communities around sustainability and the green energy transition. Examining white culture and white privilege are essential to diversity, equity and inclusion work, because work that is aimed at racial equity can ignore the background of white privilege that our society operates in. We need to take a bigger-picture view. 

As Albert Einstein once said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

White privilege is like an “invisible knapsack”


If you identify as white, you carry white privilege everywhere you go, even if you don’t realize it. Peggy McIntosh’s essay, "Unpacking the invisible knapsack," names 50 ways that white people have privilege, such as being able to walk into a retail store and not be suspected of shoplifting, never being asked to speak for all members of their racial group, and seeing people of my race widely represented in government and on TV.

As Gita Gulati-Partee and Maggie Potapchuk outline in an article for Grantmaking in the Arts, white culture is really hard to see because it is a set of “dominant, unquestioned standards of behavior and ways of functioning embodied by the vast majority of institutions in the United States.” Just think: What does a “professional” look like? As Aysa Gray observed in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, expectations of work attire, timeliness, speech patterns and work style are a few aspects of a bias toward white culture in the workplace.

White culture is a culture of separation 

More broadly, white culture is about creating separation. Separation looks like creating differences between you and me, belief in an “absolute truth” of what is “correct,” among other things. The Center for Community Organizations in Canada has outlined a summary of white supremacy culture in organizations. Have you encountered these values in your paid work or volunteering?

• Perfectionism, including worship of the written word, “one right way,” and “either/or” thinking
• Concentration of power, including power hoarding, paternalism and defensiveness
• Right to comfort, including fear of open conflict
• Individualism
• Progress is bigger/more, including objectivity, quantity over quality, and sense of urgency (the belief that “the ends justify the means”)

In this blog post, Heather Laine Talley expands on parts of white supremacy culture that she has observed in herself and others and that might be more specific to how white women bring white supremacist behaviors into the workplace, like:

• Disavowal of power
• Obsession with the future
• Performative anti-racism
• Over-delivering
• Niceness above all else
• Confusing informality with equity

Contrast the white supremacy culture of separation between self and other, human and non-human, to the Indigenous mindset of seeing nature as a family member. Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book, "Braiding Sweetgrass," discusses the “grammar of animacy.” For example, Potawatomi has a lot of verbs, whereas English has a lot of nouns. If a bay is a verb, like “to be a bay” (think San Francisco bay for example), how can you possess a process? Whereas if you see nature as an “it” (like in English), rather than a relative, it becomes easier to see how white culture makes it easier to own, dominate, subjugate, and optimize nature rather than relating to nature as a relative to care for.

Coming back to climate action: This report from Indigenous Environmental Network highlights common issues with the nature-based solutions rhetoric. One example is that the exploitative power dynamics of colonialism and economic development are entrenched in “nature-based solution” approaches to climate change mitigation. (Thanks to Ian Tran for making me aware of that article.)

White culture — a mindset of separation — reduces the amount of joy you can experience 


You may be wondering: So what? Why should I care if white culture is dominant? How does white culture negatively impact my life as a white person?

As researcher Brene Brown shares in her famous TED talk with over 60 million views, we cannot selectively numb our emotions. If we use alcohol or a banana nut muffin (her example!) to numb fear or anger or other “negative” emotions, we also numb feelings of connection and joy. 

If you’re a man who has ever felt stifled by having to wear a tie to work, or if you’re a woman who has been told you’re “too emotional,” those are symptoms of white culture. These are examples of white culture because they are examples of Western bias in what counts as “professional” attire and the “rational” or “objective” over the “emotional” or “subjective.” 

More broadly, an obsession with the future over the present is a symptom of white culture since an obsession with accomplishing future goals can lead you to avoid being present with the joy that's available now. When was the last time you sang or danced or made art without caring what you looked like or what people thought of you? When have you last taken a vacation without checking email, or taken a week off from using a computer or smartphone?

While it’s healthy to be able to delay gratification to some degree, such as prioritizing exercise and cooking a healthy dinner over eating junk food and watching TV, focusing only on the future can lead to not celebrating what you have already. How often do you celebrate an accomplishment? How often does your organization take time to celebrate the accomplishments of its employees or volunteers? Making time for doing nothing and for celebration is one way of challenging white culture’s obsession with productivity. 

What does this mean for environmental sustainability work? If we want to make meaningful change, we need to investigate the patterns that keep causing advantage to some over others, both consciously and unconsciously. We need to investigate our inner systems so we can investigate and improve our outer systems. 

The psychology of self and other, ingroup and outgroup

As mammals, we see people close to us, like family, as “ingroup” members or “safe” and others or threats that might attack us as “outgroup” members. This is part of psychology called social identity theory: People tend to create and form groups of people they think are like themselves, and these can be based on any arbitrary characteristic.

Henri Tajfel and his colleagues found that people can form biases toward an in-group very quickly (in minutes!). These groups can form even based on completely arbitrary and invented discriminatory characteristics, such as preferences for certain paintings. And there is a neurological explanation for this based on activity in the fusiform gyrus area of the brain. Also, research published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology indicates that individuals are faster and more accurate at recognizing the faces of ingroup compared to outgroup members.

How do we unstick ourselves from a culture of separation and from the harm that white supremacy culture has caused? The next of this two-part article examines some of the inner work that can get us there — click here to read it. 

Image credit: Ditto Bowo/Unsplash

Land Acknowledgment: Katharine is a Mayflower descendant who lives and works in unceded Lisjan Ohlone territory, what is now known as Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Piedmont, Emeryville and Albany, California. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands, heal from historical trauma, and facilitate the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. May they be successful in their work!

Check out the (re)Biz one-month program for people who want to build a regenerative world and get unstuck from separation mindsets in sustainability work — note that you get $100 off if you mention my name as the referral source.

U.S. Republicans conveniently pivoted away from the old “they’re taking our jobs” standby at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). They’re focusing their ire on crime and drugs instead, with some participants going as far as to blame the fentanyl crisis on immigrants. Former U.S. President Donald Trump upped the ante during his address by promising mass deportations if he is re-elected.

But decades of anti-immigrant sentiment have already hurt the labor market and played a huge role in why many U.S. employers are desperate for workers. What’s worse, the current shortage of adult workers is fueling an explosion in child labor. And it’s only going to get worse if trends continue. Between falling birth rates, the baby boomer retirement cliff and the wave of immigrants returning to their home countries after decades of working in the U.S., a shrinking labor force threatens to exacerbate and even entrench the problem of child labor. Fortunately, there is a solution: robust and proactive immigration reform.

From stolen jobs to fentanyl

Anti-immigrant attitudes may be a mainstay of conservative politics, but their justifications appear to be much more flexible. Trump’s 2015 invocations of “They’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our manufacturing jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re killing us,” might ring hollow now — and maybe even prompt some to question their political loyalties in light of an actual labor shortage. But extreme conservatives have no problem pivoting to a different excuse.

The latest: fentanyl. Republicans blamed President Joe Biden’s mythical “open border” for the uptick in fentanyl deaths in the U.S. “Pick up a dollar, and it’s got fentanyl on it, and you’re dead,” Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee said at CPAC. He declared every American to be at risk. 

None of this is true, of course. Fentanyl is not absorbed through the skin, nor is the majority brought into the country at unofficial crossings, as the likes of Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry have claimed.

The vast majority of fentanyl is actually brought into the country by U.S. citizens. In fact, 86.3 percent of those convicted of trafficking the substance are American, according to the Cato Institute. But the actual rate of smuggling by citizens could be even higher, thanks to the extra scrutiny faced by non-citizens at border crossings. After all, immigrants and asylum-seekers are much more likely to be interrogated, searched and caught, as the institute pointed out. Even under those circumstances, the drug is being seized at official border crossings or checkpoints within the border zone 9 out of 10 times.

Additionally, Trump also elaborated on his recurring claim that other countries are sending their worst. "Other countries are emptying out their prisons, insane asylums, and mental institutions and sending all of their problems right into their dumping ground,” he said at CPAC, without offering any proof to back up such claims.

Politics over solutions

Of course, the fact that conservatives are making excuses to keep people out, while ignoring the spate of labor issues that could be resolved through immigration, is hardly surprising. American politics are notorious for using the stick approach instead of the carrot, so it’s no wonder these politicians would rather address the shrinking population by eliminating a woman’s right to reproductive choice than by allowing immigrants to enter the country.

But we won’t fix the labor shortage by forcing those with uteruses to give birth while simultaneously barring would-be workers from coming across the border. Anti-immigration politics don’t just hurt immigrants and asylum-seekers  — they are damaging this country as a whole by preventing necessary additions to our labor force.

The future of labor depends on immigration

The vacuum created by the shortage of adult workers has resulted in the perfect storm for child labor violations as employers attempt to fill their workforces. But it doesn’t have to be this way. By instituting a vigorous immigration program with work visas and a path to citizenship, the U.S. can reverse the population slowdown and avoid a decline that many fear would decimate the economy and cause a range of supply chain issues and unmet needs.

Another Trump presidency could pummel the labor force even further, however. "Under my leadership, we will use all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he promised CPAC crowds. While Trump is notorious for his broken promises, his words were clearly meant to stoke the flames of hatred that are behind accusations like fentanyl trafficking and job stealing. “We will pick them up, and we will throw them out of our country, and there will be no questions asked.” 

Image credit: Kerwin Elias/Unsplash

International Women's Day is observed every March 8 as a celebration of women and their achievements and a call-to-action for accelerating gender equity. This year's theme, #EmbraceEquity, is meant as a call for collective action on pushing gender equity forward — and arguably nowhere is that more important than within the private sector. 

Research continues to show that both women and businesses — not to mention the global economy — lose out due to gender inequalities in the workplace. The most recent evidence came this week from Moody's Analytics, which found the global economy could get a $7 trillion annual boost if there were more women in the workforce and those women had equal opportunities to advance. "In other words, closing the gender pay gap wouldn’t just benefit individual women. It would also benefit everyone," observed Stephanie Hughes of Marketplace. 

But such a reality is a long way off. At this rate, it will take more than 300 years to reach global gender parity in education, employment and economic opportunity, according to the most recent data from the U.N. 

So, what are some measurable steps that global businesses can take to push toward gender equity in the workplace? Let's look at a few that are backed up by research and supported by working women and advocates worldwide. 

Become more transparent about pay to boost gender equity and close the pay gap

The global gender pay gap has remained virtually unchanged for the past two decades, according to the International Labor Organization. While research is mixed on why that is, one evidence-based intervention has been shown to make a major difference, and that's pay transparency. 

Employers that utilize salary transparency across the organization see pay inequity drop overall — whether on the basis of age, race, gender or sexual orientation. Looking at gender equity in the U.S. in particular, employers could reduce the gender pay gap by 40 percent if they embraced broad pay transparency, according to peer-reviewed research published in 2019. 

“Firms are also wary of wages getting compressed and losing their best talent to competitors without transparency,” professor Tomasz Obloj of HEC Paris Business School, who co-led the study, told Wired. “But in the data, the opposite happens — there’s no exodus of superstars from organizations that become transparent, and amid the Great Resignation, we can’t apply the lens of the ’70s and ’80s, when it was enough to offer high-powered incentives.”

Move from mentorship to sponsorship 

"I’m tired of hearing the oft-repeated wisdom: 'Women need to find mentors to ensure career success,'" Ruchika Tulshyan, author of "The Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality in The Workplace," told Diversity Woman Magazine. Women aren't lacking in professional mentors — most report having at least one mentor in their careers, with some research indicating women are even more likely to have mentors than men, Tulshyan observed. 

What they really need is sponsorship, and there's a major difference. "While mentorships are often informal relationships, sponsors are advocates for a professional’s advancement within her organization," she explained. "Many strategic decisions, such as staffing an organization’s most visible projects or highest promotions, are still made informally — on golf courses or over dinner. Finding an advocate within these circles can help high-potential women and leaders of color get much-deserved access and visibility." 

Indeed, research from economist and lauded inclusion expert Sylvia Ann Hewlett finds that women who receive sponsorship are 19 percent more likely to be promoted, and managers who become sponsors are more than 50 percent more likely to advance, building on prior research from the likes of Catalyst and JPMorgan Chase. 

Be a family-friendly employer

Statistically speaking, women aren't paid for the majority of the work they do. Every year, the World Economic Forum analyzes the total time men and women spend on non-leisure activities each week — including hours at their paid jobs, as well as the time they spend on unpaid household activities like cleaning, shopping, bill-paying and childcare. 

The latest findings are pretty disheartening: The average woman spends 45 percent of her working time doing the job she's actually paid for and the other 55 percent on childcare and other unpaid domestic work. That's compared to 81 percent of time on paid work and 19 percent of time on domestic work for men (and yes, that domestic work does include caring for their own children). 

With this in mind, it's not surprising that challenges in balancing home and work life are a major reason why women drop out of the labor force or struggle to advance. Some pundits interpret this with a spin on the "no one wants to work anymore" mentality — essentially saying women find their family lives more important, and there's nothing employers can do about that. 

But let's be honest: There is plenty employers can do, and there's plenty of data to back that up. For example, economies that provide public or subsidized child care have more than twice the percentage of women wage earners, according to the World Bank. While they wait (and hopefully lobby) for governments to do the right thing, the companies that step in with their own childcare policies will attract and retain more talented women, benefitting their own bottom lines as well as the economy. 

Offering childcare benefits has been found to lower absenteeism by 30 percent and reduce turnover by 60 percent, while boosting recruitment and employee productivity, according to the Early Care and Learning Council. Research indicates that more parents of color are likely to leave the workforce due to childcare issues. As such, 90 percent of HR leaders said childcare benefits can help support a diverse workforce, and 86 percent said the same about senior care benefits, according to a 2022 survey of 500 human resources professionals across U.S. industries. 

Likewise, while over 120 countries mandate paid parental leave, companies in laggard nations like the U.S. have the opportunity to stand out by offering these benefits even though they are not required: A 2020 survey of more than 440,000 working parents at 1,200 U.S. companies shows that generous paid parental leave and other parental benefits are linked to higher rates of retention and engagement.

The bottom line: Governments, employers and civil society all have a role to play in promoting gender equity

“Gender equality is growing more distant,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said during a General Assembly speech on Monday — pointing to ongoing issues such as attacks on abortion rights in the U.S. and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

The widening gender gap demands collective action not only by governments, but also business and civil society leaders around the world. "It calls for gender-responsive education and skills training, algorithms that align with human rights and gender equality and investment in bridging the digital gender divide,” Guterres said. “More than ever, we need collective action by governments, civil society, the private sector and the technology community.”

Image credit: RF._.studio/Pexels

Research has more than made the case for linking environmental, social and governance 
(ESG) strategies to corporate profitability. What’s good for people and the planet does, indeed, benefit a company’s bottom line. The trickier part is determining what programs will yield the best results for the investment.

Some ESG pathways are easier to attain and measure direct results, such as cost reductions. But top-line market growth demands a greater understanding of customer wishes and perceptions of a company’s ESG efforts. Those expectations and priorities will differ by industry sector, as well as by geographies, cultures, and demographics like age and gender.

While studies and reports can point companies in the right direction with top-level overviews of trends and industry insights, real-time survey and data collection can dig deeper into what consumers prize in ESG efforts.

Measuring consumer ESG priorities across industries, brands and more

Glow, a research-technology business with offices in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, first started tracking what consumers think about ESG issues in relation to purchasing decisions over two years ago. It began with a field of approximately 40 issues that, through multiple research studies across three markets (U.S., U.K. and Australia), were then synthesized into 13 ESG drivers of consumer priorities and perceptions.

The process yielded a diagnostic tool called the Social Responsibility Score (SRS) that not only provides a number to tell a company how it is perceived in its ESG efforts, but also where it stands in its industry and against its competitors and why consumers score it that way.

For example, among food and grocery (F&G) companies in particular, three environmental drivers — reducing emissions, respecting natural resources, and protecting wildlife and ecosystems — ranked highest for importance among consumers, as shown below.

This isn’t to say social drivers like health and well-being aren’t important to F&G customers — they are. But understanding consumers’ top concerns at a given time can help companies prioritize, in terms of both programming and messaging successes. Communicating accomplishments in the areas that matter most to consumers can translate into customer loyalty as well as brand switching. 

On the other hand, if a brand and its competitors are all communicating about the same things, it can be harder to stand out. In cases like these, a brand may opt to lean into an area that isn’t as much of a focus for peers and competitors. Or, if it finds it’s under-performing compared to peers on key issues that matter to consumers, it may decide to invest more in those areas and communicate an improvement story. 

Listening to consumers via data capture enables this kind of decision-making, helping brands to get the most return on their ESG investments.

Take, for example, these two anonymized F&G competitors from Australia, shown above. Both brands mapped their SRS in relation to the industry benchmark (the green line). Brand A clearly outshines Brand B on virtually all of the 13 drivers. The achievement gap in the areas most important to consumers, such as “reducing emissions”  is substantial enough to be a significant opportunity for Brand A to message that success to customers hungry for guidance on where to invest their purchasing power. Meanwhile, Brand B can see where it’s progressing and where further investments can help it improve credibility. 

ESG drivers differ across industries 

What weighs heaviest on consumers’ minds will vary across industries. For example, Glow found that governance and social drivers are the biggest influences on ESG credentials in the health insurance industry in the U.S., as shown below. 

In travel and tourism, on the other hand, U.S. customers view all three divisions of environmental, social and governance factors as important for the sector to address.

In a balanced framework such as the latter, drilling further down into age, gender, geography, and competition among brands is vital to determine the focus for programs and messaging to avoid spreading investment and resources too thin.

Continuing to zero-in on what matters to who

Price and quality are typically the engines powering consumer choices, but business leaders may be surprised at how strong “sustainability” has become as a beacon to consumers looking for safe harbor for their purchasing dollars. 

This is especially true in the F&G sector — where 1 in 2 U.S. consumers have switched brands based on sustainability considerations, and 1 in 5  ranked ESG/sustainability as one of the top three drivers for deciding what brands to purchase, according to Glow data.

Diving deeper to look at age segmentation, millennials prized ESG/sustainability even higher, with 1 in 3 such consumers rating it as one of their top three considerations, behind price and quality. Further, 10 percent of millennials rated ESG/sustainability as the top influencer of their purchase decisions, even more than price and quality, Glow found.

These findings demonstrate the importance of ESG initiatives and messaging to any company’s bottom line. To fail in listening and responding to consumers in this regard is to surrender profits and reputation to competitors that are willing to leverage the feedback.

Data and surveys give a brand that feedback continuously since the measurements can be taken over set time periods, in connection with program launches or in tandem with media campaigns.

“The response from people taking these surveys is actually very clear. You can understand what it is that’s driving the consumer response and what’s driving the metric you receive,” said Tim Clover, CEO of Glow. “It allows you to line up the programs you’re running with the different areas and ask, ‘Are these the programs we should be communicating?’ If so, to whom do we communicate and through which media?”

Alignment of ESG programs with consumer expectations, coupled with alignment of messaging to bring about positive public perception of those programs, creates a winning combination for brands. 

The tools exist to know what ESG concerns consumers really care about. The decision to use those tools enables business leaders to enhance brand profitability while “doing the right thing.” 

This article series is sponsored by Glow and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team.

Image credits: georgerudy/Adobe Stock and Glow