Green cleaning stalwart Ecover has topped a new survey in which consumers were asked to rank FMCG brands by their sustainability credentials.
Consumer research agency Impact spoke to 6,000 UK consumers to find out their views of the sustainability performance of 100 leading brands. Factors that consumers were asked to consider included social responsibility, environmental friendliness, financial responsibility and ethics.
The scores were then weighted according to the importance of each factor and each brand was given an overall ‘sustainability score’ out of 100.
Based on this system, consumers judged these five brands to be Britain’s most sustainable:
| Brand | Sustainability score |
| Ecover | 80.1 |
| Rude Health | 72.6 |
| Linda McCartney Foods | 72.5 |
| Method | 72.1 |
| The Cheeky Panda | 70.7 |
Impact notes that all the top five are specialist brands have strong sustainability messages as their USP. “Ecover and Method, for example, were created to reduce the environmental impact of cleaning products; Rude Health and Linda McCartney make dairy-free and vegetarian alternatives, and the Cheeky Panda produces sustainable essentials such as toilet paper and wipes,” it says.
“Over 75% of consumers think that each of these brands are environmentally friendly and almost 70% think that they are socially responsible.”
“Driven by increasing media attention, sustainability is becoming increasingly important to consumers,” comments Tom Gould, research director at Impact. “For example, 64% say that their views of plastic packaging have been influenced by what they see in the news. Our study shows that consumers want to see brands addressing the issues they see talked about in the media. It’s more important than ever that brands are communicating environmental issues in the right way and in the right places not only to be taken seriously by consumers, but to avoid controversy.”
