As we turn our attention to 2025….
Are You Doing All You Can to Grow Your Company?
HAVE YOU DONE EVERYTHING TO MAXIMIZE MARGINS?
Per Nielsen, a certified sustainable company, promoting same, enjoys a 5% year-on-year price increase. Its non-sustainable competitors grow prices 1% year-on-year.
If you are not a certified sustainable company, and enjoying the promotional benefits of same, per Nielsen, you are leaving 4% on the table, year-on-year.
HOW ARE YOU DIFFERENTIATING YOUR BUSINESS?
Per MIT / BCG, the biggest challenge facing your business is competitive differentiation.
Per Cone / Ebiquity Global CSR, 84% of consumers seek companies that have differentiated by becoming certified sustainable.
Per Symbola, companies that have differentiated with our standard are growing 20x faster than their non-certified competitive peers.
If you are not certified sustainable, you are not growing as fast as your competitors who are?
HOW WILL YOU INFLUENCE THE LARGEST BUYING GROUP?
Per Forbes, the largest buying group (19 – 39 year olds) disbelieve 99% of all advertising that does not have 3rd party verification/certification.
Further, per Forbes, before visiting a company or purchasing a product, they review a company’s environmental standing and 9 out of 10 (87%) of them will then purchase from, and remain loyal to, a company that has proven (certified) its environmental standing.
If your competitor becomes certified sustainable before you, you will lose market share.
WILL YOU BE A MARKET SHARE GIVER OR TAKER?
Per a number of studies/reports, including Unilever, there is a +$2 Trillion gap between consumers looking to move their business to certified sustainable organizations….and the availability of same.
This takes us back to the Symbola study showing that certified sustainable small to mid-sized businesses are growing 20x faster than their non-certified peers.
If you are not certified sustainable and a competitor becomes so, you will be a market share giver.
WILL YOU BE TOO BUSY TO TAKE BUSINESS FROM YOUR COMPETITORS?
Per an A. T. Kearney study, sustainable companies outperform their peers by 15%.
Yet, the top reason executives give for not pursuing sustainability is, “I’m too busy.”