Detroit — A sustainability survey of Society of Plastics Engineers members showed that all employees — not just management — play active roles in driving the movement, consultant Maggie Baumann said at SPE's Antec conference.
That has broadened out in the 2018 survey over two sustainability surveys done before, in 2011 and 2014, by the SPE's Marketing and Management special interest group.
"The responsibility has shifted from, 'Let's call it corporate and senior people responsible for managing,' to, 'All employees having concerns with the practices of sustainability,'" Baumann said. "So that trend is going enterprisewide."
Baumann said the millennial generation are the consumers of the future. "And they care about what the brands are — they feel like they're socializing with their brands. Their life is more experiential," she said.
She said baby boomers care, too. They were the ones out protesting and trying to make the word a better place. Boomers are willing to pay a little extra for "green" products, said Baumann, who runs industrial marketing firm G.H. Associates in Lebanon, N.J.