Bite-Sized Insights: Inflation Inhibits Parents From Making More Sustainable Purchases

For this week’s bite-sized insights question, we asked parents to tell us how they feel about paying more for environmentally friendly/sustainable products across categories. Take a quick read of this week’s bite-sized insights to find out what parents are saying about sustainable shopping.

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We asked our Insights panel of parents to tell us how likely they would be to spend more on environmentally/sustainable products across different categories. Here’s how they answered:

Any other thoughts on buying more sustainable/environmentally friendly products? Comments from our panel members included:

“At present with inflation very high and the cost of living i.e. paying bills, buying groceries I would not be able to afford sustainable/environmentally friendly products as I have no extra money left to buy these. If my finances improve I would not hesitate in buying sustainable/environmentally friendly products.”

“I understand why it’s slightly more expensive to go for the more sustainable choice and that would strongly be my priority but sometimes it’s not financially viable.”

“I think buying less products full stop makes more sense that what is spent on them. If you need four so called ‘eco products’ to replace one then it’s probably not very eco-friendly or sustainable. I don’t buy ‘eco-toys’ because we haven’t found any where the quality justifies the price (although we’re a very low toy household anyway). In contrast, I almost exclusively buy ‘eco-clothing’ as I feel the opposite way about them. I believe products should last a very long time so if my 6-year old has a toy or t-shirt that can’t be passed down to his younger brothers it’s a bad purchase.”

“It’s definitely something I want to do, I just still find that everything that is more eco-friendly tends to more expensive. Having said that, I made the switch last year for all our household cleaning products and with a bit of shopping around online I’ve managed to keep the cost reasonable, but I have to spend that time it wouldn’t be easy to find those products where I do our weekly food shop.”

“When everything is going up in cost, people don’t have more money to buy more sustainably. Products were a lot more environmentally friendly years ago – milk in glass bottles, less packaging on fruit and veg etc. We need to go back to basics. People should be encouraged to use their own containers etc. when shopping. In relation to clothes, we need to say no to fast fashion and I am trying to do my but buying less and rewearing my clothes.”

“Happy to buy sustainable products where the price is reasonable. However, I doubt the credentials of some products. For example, a bottle of Hardys wine from Australia labelled as carbon neutral.”

Key insights and recommendations on in-store versus online retail:

Parents are keen to buy more sustainably but are reluctant to do so for cost related reasons. Emphasising the cost per use attributes of more hard-wearing products could help justify perceived high costs to parents.
Some parents indicated a lack of trust when it comes to the authenticity of a product’s eco-friendly credentials. Using some marketing budget to shine a light on the good choosing your product over less eco-friendly options does can help to build brand trust.
If you’re planning to change your product or service to be more sustainable, make sure you get consumer insights to help you with your planning and rollout. We can help!