One of the biggest challenges the world has with regards to Net Zero is no one sees it as a burning bridge.
From a corporate perspective, many are still trying to recover from the pandemic and are focussed on rebuilding cash reserves and overall profitability. For others the interest and inflation rate environment combined with tariffs is consuming a lot of their time and resources.
For the consumer, even though the are saying the right things about they care about the environment, their purchasing decisions are still purely based on price. The consumer is affected by the economic environment just as much as companies and there is only so much discretionary spending available each month.
What we have to do is create a tipping point where the consumer sees the value in making purchasing decisions that are based on environmental impact. This is not going to be easy, but it is possible.
And it starts with educating the consumer about the impact of their purchasing decisions. We need to show them that by making small changes, they can have a big impact on the environment.
The blocker here is companies do not have the data to show the consumer what the impact of their purchasing decisions are. They may have some data, but it is not enough to make a compelling case.
This is where Zero Pro helps - it allows companies to build a credible picture of the environmental impact of their supply chain and products. It provides the data that companies need to show the consumer the impact of their purchasing decisions.
The other challenge is consumers dont believe what they are being told. They have been bombarded with greenwashing messages for so long that they are sceptical of any claims made by companies.
This is further impacted by the amount of negative proress that companies are receiving in this space.
The way to move this subject forward is for a company to fully evaluate a product and its associated supply chain and calculate the current environmental impact.
The next stage is to identify some changes that are low in implementation complexity and high in benefits. These changes are implemented and the product is re-baselined.
The benefits from the change are then communicated to the consumer. For retailers, this could be a simple as a label on the product that states the benefits.
As part of the Zero Pro platform, there is a QR Code driven consumer education tool. This allows companies to create a QR Code that can be placed on the product packaging or in the store.
When the consumer scans the code, they are taken to a page that shows the environmental impact of the product and the changes that have been made to reduce it.
This data can also be retrieved using the Zero Pro Corporate Gateway, allowing companies to integrate the data into their own systems and processes.