How corporate innovation can help encourage conscious consumerism

If employees care about the cause, audiences will too

Bottom-up corporate innovation strategies allow employees to work on ideas  that they care about while simultaneously paying attention to the brand’s ethics. When the people behind the company are emotionally invested in a concept, it’s very likely that there will be audiences who feel the same. Wohntraum’s vision was to end social inequality in home ownership and is a great example of how shared ethics are a catalyst for growth and sustainability. 

Conscious consumerism often looks at smaller purchases than homes, but this example shows how it can be combined with corporate innovation across all sectors and audiences.

Conscious consumerism can influence corporate innovation

Given that conscious consumerism is a priority for a growing audience, any innovation program that encourages companies to listen to their audiences will naturally gravitate towards ethical consumerism. The My Starbucks Idea scheme may not have been focused on conscious consumerism but shows how customers can contribute to innovation and drive positive change. In today’s world, they will often suggest ethical ideas.

Experiments highlight opportunities to improve

Intrapreneurship through KICKBOX allows employees to innovate on their terms and experiment on a small scale. Efficiency often leads to positive environmental or economic impacts at every stage of the innovation project. Products that hit the market flourish on this front.

Corporate innovation promotes in-house ethical improvements

Employee innovation programs can streamline innovation processes in many ways. For example, Atlassian allows employees 24 hours to work on anything they want, enabling them to run small scale experiments before even contacting others. When combined with smooth communication and small-scale research, ventures become greener.

Behind-the-scenes ethical upgrades through formulating ideas and onto R&D are often equally important to the overall output of conscious consumerism. 

Loyal clients are very loyal to conscious consumerism

Every organization knows about the 80:20 rule and the benefits of building a loyal following. Conscious consumerism is a catalyst for increased loyalty and customer lifetime values. It is shown that 54.7% of the CPG market growth between 2015 and 2019 was attributed to sustainability-marketed products. Frankly, when efforts to attend to conscious consumerism are  successful, any further corporate innovation strategies will organically determine that this is a priority.

In short, it becomes a cycle where conscious consumerism and corporate innovation feed into each other. Once this happens, sustained growth is assured.