The future continues to look bright for organic agriculture and organic products as a result of the increasing influence of corporate social responsibility or conscious capitalism amongst the generation of millennials. As confirmed by the recent Nielsen ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’ report.
Nielsen milennial sustainability. Sourced from the Nielsen ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’ report.
From the 30,000 consumers surveyed by Nielsen across 60 countries, a strong positive trend continues amongst the younger generation’s willingness to pay and their actual payment for sustainable and ethical products and services. Over half (55%) of the total respondents said they were willing to pay a premium for responsibly produced products and services, an increase of 5% from a previous survey in 2012, with the Asia-Pacific region (64%), Latin America (63%) and the Middle East/Africa (63%) coming in above the global average. These sentiments were reflected through positive retail sales data from a cross-section of retail brands across 9 countries, with sustainable products reflecting an average annual year-on-year sales increase of 2-5% as opposed to an increase of 1% for brands and products marketed without sustainability claims.
Nielsen millennial sustainability: Sourced from Nielsen’s ‘Doing Well by Doing Good’ report.
So what does this mean for organic agriculture, and food-related products? Whilst we’re likely all aware of the number of positive impacts of organic farming (I.e. Increased biodiversity, animal welfare, improved livelihoods of producers), organic agriculture is yet to represent 1% of total global agriculture.
This presents consumers with a strong opportunity to exercise effective purchasing power, particularly given agriculture is one of the leading contributing factors in global issues of hunger, inequality, environmental degradation, energy consumption and so on.
The growth of this tangible consumer support is a positive indicator for the organic agricultural movement. It is also a welcome contribution to the evolution of the movement from its current state, dubbed ‘Organic 2.0’ by IFOAM, involving the sleuth of private standards, public regulation and global recognition into an ‘Organic 3.0’ phase, which heralds an era of market innovation and reinvention, widespread conversion and performance improvement.
That’s all for now, more to come on on the ‘Organic 3.0’ phase shortly!
Notes and sources:
* Information and illustrations taken from the Nielsen ‘Doing well by doing good’ report
* Information regarding the evolution of the organic agriculture movement sourced from the IFOAM ‘Organic 3.0 – The next phase of organic development’ report