Conscious consumption in the UAE
By Aimen Khan
Key Findings in our Think Tank Lab
According to the survey conducted in 2019, conscious consumption is growing in the UAE with the focus on eco-friendly measures and sustainable products are on the rise. According to the report, in the next 5 years, Conscious Consumption will be directing many initiatives and projects; a leap towards sustainability as a result of our joint efforts.
Key Takeaways from The Session
Our discussion revolved around the challenges and opportunities in the sustainability sector and the choices that we make or are presented to us as a customer. The discussion added insights into the business opportunities when talking about conscious consumption. What do consumers seek today? We covered global and local market trends and statistics important for taking business decisions and creating strategies. What is an efficient marketing strategy? What are the affordable marketing tools in the UAE for growing start-ups?
All of this is covered in our report related to this topic and available to our Think Tank community.
Challenges
The challenges we face are related to our buying preferences and how can we make conscious decisions, for e.g. saying NO to single use plastic and options that are easily available but not sustainable. We take conscious consumption decisions by simply not buying baby corn or asparagus wrapped in plastic packaging.
This is where GreenFootprint provide an easy access to solutions and acts as a digital city sustainable guide for sustainable solutions, such as finding: eco-products, reusable packaging solutions, refill stations across Emirates etc.
While discussing the possibilities that businesses have when promoting themselves we came to a conclusion that digital and social media plays an important role in marketing and engaging with mass audiences, but is not being the sustainable option, as it requires a lot of investment. On the other hand, pop up stores are not always the right option to target your audiences. To build a platform you need to reach out to customers not only through social media but also in personal engagement in creating partnerships with them. It’s about taking small steps and educating, you have to plant a small seed. It’s more to contribute to the cause you have and communicating with the audience about where your product is coming from, making the supply chain process sustainable and transparent for the audience.
This is why GreenFootprint creates a sustainable hub- one stop place for sustainable practices- in order to raise awareness, educate, and engage with different stakeholders. We support ethical SMEs to grow and offer sustainable and affordable solutions to start-up. We are scaling up in order to innovate.
The Trend
While discussed the global trends for outreach and marketing and how business need to shift to hybrid business models (online and brick and mortars), making a social media presence as well as engaging with audience is a key. It’s about educating the audience, it’s about telling them what is available in the stores and what you as a business is offering when it comes to taking sustainable approach. GreenFootprint creates market transparency by conducting sustainability assessment to businesses and helping businesses to be more sustainable through our Business Empowerment Program. On the other side we continue to educate consumer through our articles, campaigns, coming events and smart partnerships.
Conclusion
Concluding our session, there are a lot more conversations happening on the topic and a lot more impact being created towards bringing sustainable change. Moreover, GreenFootprint will keep bringing stakeholders together for positive impact! Through our Think Tank program we are providing collaborative platform for growth.
Read about how Conscious Consumption topic has been covered during COP26 (link)
To join our Think Tank please contact us on office@greenfootprint.ae to know more
