For years, executives were sold a compelling idea: doing good also meant doing well. Surveys suggested that consumers were increasingly willing to pay more for products that were seen (or marketed) as better for the planet. Consultants reinforced the message. Investors reward ambitious environmental commitments. Companies launched wave after wave of durable products, expecting customers to reward their efforts at the checkout counter.
The research seemed to justify the belief. In 2020, the consulting firm Kearney reported that 70 percent of consumers said they were willing to pay up to 10 percent more for sustainable products. Another consultant, Bain, surveyed more than 23,000 consumers in eleven countries in 2023 and found that 64 percent reported high levels of concern regarding sustainability. McKinsey went further, stating that consumers not only cared about sustainability, but actually were supporting these concerns with their wallets.
The problem is they weren’t. When McKinsey tested actual willingness to pay using an auction-based methodology, consumers were willing to pay a average premium of only 2.2 percent for durability in three everyday products: yogurt, shampoo and T-shirt. Similarly, a study by European e-commerce firm Zalando of 2,500 consumers found that while 60 percent said sustainability transparency was important to them, only 20 percent actively sought that information during a purchase. This is what researchers call the say-do gap: the distance between what people tell pollsters and what they actually do in stores.
The gap reflects a fundamental truth about how people buy things: customers buy products to do a job. No one buys dishwasher tablets to save the planet. They do this to clean the dishes. No one buys farm equipment to reduce carbon emissions. They want to run a more productive farm. Durability can be a reason to carebut it is rarely a reason to buy. The two are not the same thing, and confusing them has been one of the most expensive strategic mistakes of the past decade.
This is the central finding of our research. But the story does not end with failure. The most interesting finding is that many of the most successful commercial sustainability strategies of recent years have completely abandoned the premium model and replaced it with something much more sustainable: using sustainability to improve customer outcomes.
For most of its history, John Deere farm equipment for sale. But recently, it has shifted to selling farm productivity. Through precision technologies, farmers can now reduce fuel consumption, fertilizer use and herbicide application, while simultaneously improving yields, lowering costs and simplifying regulatory compliance. While the environmental benefits are essential, sustainability is not the driving force behind the purchase. Farmers adopt these technologies because they help them run better businesses.
This represents a fundamentally different logic than that which dominated sustainability thinking for much of the past decade. The old model assumed that environmental benefits alone would create enough value to justify higher prices or, in some cases, lower performance.
John Deere’s approach does the opposite. He uses endurance for it improve performance so customers get better results and environmental benefits follow automatically. The company does not need to convince farmers to care for the planet. It has to convince them that the technology works. Sustainability is not merely optional; it is invisible to those who do not care for it.
We have encountered the same pattern repeatedly. Take Finish dishwashing detergent. Even with a machine, washing dishes was a chore. For years, consumers have prewashed dishes before loading them in the dishwasher, a habit that can use up to 75 liters (19.8 gallons)
Finish engineers developed a highly effective tablet to eliminate the need for pre-rinsing, saving customers an average of 57 liters (15.1 gallons)
Electrolux offers a consumer version of the same logic. The company’s care drum, a pillow-like mechanism inside its washing machines, is designed to be gentler on clothes and reduce wear and tear, helping clothes last longer. For customers, this means lower replacement costs and the ability to keep the clothes they value for longer.
The environmental benefits are also real, although this is not their main selling point. Electrolux estimates that it extends the life of clothing by just nine months reduces emissions, waste and
This is what we call resonance: harnessing consistency gROW customer value rather than simply to signal environmental commitment. Resonant companies understand something that eludes most conventional sustainability strategies: that not all customers care about sustainability, and it’s not their job to change it. What they can do is use sustainability as a lens for innovation, finding ways to improve what customers already value while reducing environmental impact. The best sustainability strategies incorporate environmental benefits within outcomes that customers already want.
The same principle works in business-to-business markets. Schneider Electric has built a large part of its value proposition around helping customers to reduce energy consumption and improve operational efficiency. Its customers aren’t buying sustainability credentials. They are buying lower costs, greater resilience and better performance. Sustainability is a consequence of solving these problems. This is one reason why sustainability has proved more commercially viable in industrial markets than many expected: when environmental improvement is structurally linked to economic outcome, the business case becomes very difficult to challenge.
The experience of plant-based meat illustrates the opposite dynamic. Consumer interest in reducing meat consumption remains significant. However, growth slowed significantly as many products struggled with a number of familiar challenges: higher prices, questions about taste and concerns about the degree of processing involved.
Consumers were often sympathetic to the environmental mission. They were simply less willing to compromise on the attributes that led to the initial purchase decision. The lesson is not that consistency doesn’t matter. It’s that sustainability matters most when it improves things that customers already value, and fails when it asks them to accept less of those things in return.
This change may ultimately be healthy for the sustainability movement itself. For years, the dominant question in business has been: how much extra will customers pay for a more responsive product? Increasingly, winning companies are looking for something more productive: how sustainability can help us create more value?
Framed in this way, the question leads to very different answers. It encourages companies to do things differently, focusing on eliminating waste or improving product performance, or in some cases, reducing cost of ownership or strengthening customer loyalty. These actions are not seen as exchanges for sustainability, but as expressions of it. This new lens transforms durability from an additional feature to a source of competitive advantage.
This is where the next phase of sustainable business will be won or lost. The future does not belong to companies that ask customers to choose between sustainability and economy. It belongs to companies that have made sustainability the reason for improving the economy.
Pure Winners: The Sustainability Strategy That Puts Customers First BY Goutam Challagalla and Frédéric Dalsace is out now, published by Harvard Business Review Press.
