When back in 1972 visionary George P. Mitchell introduced the concept of Sustainable Development, it is questionable if someone could foresee the global impact that this term would have nearly five decades later. According to Britannica.com, Sustainability is understood as a form of intergenerational ethics in which the environmental and economic actions taken by present people do not diminish the opportunities of future generations to enjoy similar levels of wealth, utility, or welfare.
Sustainability has become a consideration for nearly every firm operating in today’s business landscape. As far as selling is concerned, it’s not just consumers who are shopping for Sustainability these days but is also now one of corporate buyers’ top three purchasing criteria as well. However, while Sustainability research and execution has spread across business disciplines, we may say that it is missing from professional selling and sales management. This is mainly because Sustainability generally involves firm-level policies and processes, and therefore areas of interest like consumer behavior, marketing strategy, and supply chain management have dominated.
Hence, the results from Bain & Company’s survey of five hundred B2B buyers and sellers that show a widening gap regarding Sustainability do not come as a surprise. According to this survey that took place in 2024, 36% of the buyers would leave suppliers that don’t meet Sustainability expectations. Moreover, even though 85% of the sellers report that they embed some degree of Sustainability in their products and services, only 27% consider themselves very knowledgeable about their customers’ Sustainability needs. Indeed, only 53% of customers say the sustainable options they are offered fully meet their expectations.
On top of that, two-thirds of customers report having a low or average understanding of what justifies the price of their suppliers’ sustainable offerings, while 45% don’t believe their suppliers clearly state the financial return on that investment, limiting their willingness to pay a premium. Neverthelss, nearly 50% of the customers said they would pay a sustainability premium of 5% or more and only 6% stated that they would not pay any premium. To close this gap, it is necessary for suppliers to stop doing more of the same tactics, but to start catching up with their customers, be agile and more systematic, since with Sustainability many sellers need to create new markets, something that calls for Sales skills that may have not been exercised for some time.
Primarily, companies need to have a detailed understanding of clients’ expectations on this matter, before they begin influencing their buying decisions. Therefore, suppliers must systematically identify customers and customer segments that are most likely to be interested in sustainable offerings, by creating profiles reflecting on how much the buyers spend and the importance that they show on Sustainability and the specific aspects that they care most, along with the goals that they have set regarding them.
If suppliers better understand the customer needs, then they could tailor value propositions that combine traditional purchasing criteria such as price and performance with Sustainability components (e.g. CO2 emissions reduction). Of course, this would require translating features into benefits that can be easily communicated by their salesforce, so as to make clear the value on offer. For all the above to be realised, one of the prerequisites is to equip the salespeople with the right knowledge and skills so that they learn to emphasise on the financial and Sustainability value that their products/services of to their clientele.
It is evident that learning how to convey the true value of Sustainability to the customers is necessary and critical if the companies would like to gain market share and grow in “green” businesses. Since, as we have seen, there is clearly a chasm between buyers and sellers, companies should start approaching Sustainability with a new go-to-market strategy that will allow them to develop new innovations at speed and Sales teams that can act in the same way.