Led by Richard Poynton

www.richardpoynton.com

Introduction

Consumers influence, directly or indirectly, 60% of total UK emissions of carbon dioxide.

The great majority of consumers are ‘mainstream’ consumers, not ‘green’ enthusiasts.  To achieve sustainable consumption on a scale meaningful for the resolution of climate change and ‘one planet’ resource use, it has to be desirable to mainstream consumers.

Mainstream consumers have very different needs and interest from ‘green’ enthusiasts.  Mainstream consumers delegate to retailers and supply chain businesses the ‘fixing’ of the complexities of sustainable consumption, to make sustainable consumption a desirable option for them, without any big snags, e.g. increased cost and reduced choice.

If retailers / supply chain businesses are to ‘fix’ the complexities, they need a clear view of what mainstream consumers actually regard as desirable, in sustainable consumption products and service features.  They also need to know which words and product symbols ‘work’ for mainstream consumers, to communicate e.g. at the point of sale, their progress in facilitating sustainable consumption.

Equally, mainstream consumers need to know what ‘fixes’ are available now, and what is in the pipeline.  This requires both an understanding of the words and symbols being used by the supply chain and a basis for trusting supply chain information.

For a picture of the market segmentation model, see here:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Revised_technical_adoption_cycle.png

Which leads us to this question:

If mainstream consumers are to support sustainable consumption, what should their dialogue with retailers and supply chains be about?

References

Moore, G. A., 1991, Crossing the Chasm : marketing and selling high-tech products to mainstream consumers, Harper Business     

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

Discussion

About food

As everyone in the room had some professional or strong personal interest in food, we focussed on the food supply chain for our conversations.

• In the materials circulated before the meeting, Richard drew our attention to the WI / WRAP joint project, Love Food Champions, which was set up as part of the Love Food Hate Waste campaign.  http://www.thewi.org.uk/standard.aspx?id=10880
• We discussed what we mean by sustainable consumption, when it comes to food.  Ideas included less meat (e.g. as suggested by the UK Climate Change Committee earlier that day http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/01/climatechange-carbonemissions ), less food overall (in the UK) a food supply system which doesn’t damage the climate, a food supply system which is aligned with ‘one planet’ living.  
• There was some disagreement about details (the feasibility of persuading people to eat less meat, the feasibility of finding a way of providing strawberries out of season which meet the criteria). 
• There was agreement about the need for a very great deal of change to happen very quickly.  We were all frustrated by incrementalism.
• Growing Communities (www.growingcommunities.org) is a social enterprise in Hackney which Penny is involved with.  As well as providing a very practical alternative to the current food system (weekly organic seasonal and largely local fruit and veg bags; weekly organic farmers’ market; organic market gardens in Hackney etc), Growing Communities is developing a local food concept map and manifesto.  This sets out the kinds of foods which are best provided locally, and those which are best provided through longer-distance trading.  In essence, this is a description of a sustainable food supply system, from Growing Communities’ point of view. The organisation also operates according to a set of twelve principles, which you can see here: http://www.btinternet.com/~grow.communities/background.htm
• Continuing the local food theme, Richard talked about the ‘ring’ around cities in China, designated for supplying food to the city.  
• The concept of ‘living supply chains’ was also mentioned, showing that supply chains mimic processes in nature. http://www.johngattorna.com/index.html

Understanding the chasm

• The widest gap between market segments, is that between early adopters and early majority.  This means that the offer and promotion to the early majority has to be completely different to that which succeeded with the early adopters.  Most of the learning about what works with early adopters will turn out to be irrelevant when reaching out across the chasm!
• It is important to identify the key aspects of sustainable consumption (assuming we can agree what sustainable consumption is) which mainstream consumers can support (i.e. find desirable).
• What might be desirable for the early majority?  Early adopters are the kinds of people who become customers of Growing Communities.  Early majority are probably not!
• Desirable might mean things like: not more expensive; packaging which is easy to segregate for recycling; ‘something I want to eat from a place which is safe’.
• The approach to take is to find the underlying need and deliver it through a different product, or the same product supplied in a different way.  You may need to educate the consumer to choose the ‘new’ alternative to the thing they would have chosen.
• Another way of segmenting consumers was discussed, based on MBTI.  Developed by David Kiersey, Please Understand Me is a key text on this. http://www.keirsey.com/pum_2.aspx  In this model, as interpreted by Steve, you can imagine some people in and around a river.  Entrepreneurs swim against the stream, and relish doing so.  Good managers sit in the stream, keeping things steady while turbulence flows around them.  Professionals (lawyers, academics, doctors, accountants, bureaucrats) travel with the stream.  Artists, journalists etc sit on the bank and chronicle what is going on.  Perhaps this segmentation can help illuminate our thinking.  Industry is run by the entrepreneurs and managers.  Government is run by the professionals and chroniclers. 

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