THE CONSCIOUS CONSUMER If your salon isn’t stocking and using sustainably sourced, created and packaged products, you risk losing the most influential customers – Generation Z, says Kerrie Simon-Lawrence.
IT USED to be that sustainable beauty was the stuff of hippies, best left to the infamous ‘90s refill counter at The Body Shop. Back in the day we liked our bottles plastic, and our boxes wrapped in cellophane – it felt special somehow. Fast-forward 20-odd years and – thankfully – we’ve been schooled on sustainability, and that if we want a planet to pass on to our grandkids, we’d best be a bit kinder to her.
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According to a recent Australian survey by delivery service Couriers Please – who claim that a vast majority of their deliveries are beauty products – nine in 10 Australian consumers are more likely to purchase ethical and sustainable products. In fact, most respondents also said they would be willing to pay up to 10% more for sustainable products. “The survey data reveals that a large majority of consumers – not a minority
like some may have thought – want brands and retailers to be more transparent about the origins and sustainability of products,” says Paul Roper, chief commercial officer at Couriers Please. “Consumers want to be more conscious of what, and who, they are purchasing from. I think it could be a big wake-up call for retailers to realise that there is a rise in conscious consumerism.” The survey also revealed that two in five Australian consumers would be willing to pay more for ethical and sustainable products, while younger consumers appear to be more sustainably-minded – with 46 per cent of shoppers under-30s, compared to 34 per cent of over-50s. A higher proportion of women are also willing to spend more on sustainably produced products at 46 per cent, compared with 36 per cent of male consumers.
