PwC’s 2024 Voice of the Consumer Survey recently revealed that the general public is happy to pay a premium for sustainable products. But there’s a catch: they need to trust the sustainability claims being made about the product. This can be difficult and costly for companies to verify in a way that satisfies most consumers. However, the rise of digital incentives and tracking can have a serious, beneficial impact on the situation. For example, McDonald’s launched a line of collectible, reusable cups for the holidays, and this program doesn’t just stop at distribution. Utilizing the McDonald’s app, customers can track their usage and earn rewards for continued engagement.
Why this is so important is twofold. First, the incentives drive ongoing use, which maximizes the sustainability impact of the program. Perhaps even more importantly, the technology tracks use over time, giving McDonald’s real data that consumers can use to back up their claims. This is essential because it’s been found by the European Commission that as much as 42% of sustainability claims amounted to lies or, at best, symbolic gestures, a practice known as “greenwashing.” This is unacceptable for the average user and sows distrust in future sustainability projects.
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In 2024, greenwashing started getting some real pushback from consumers, who are beginning to boycott brands that engage in this practice, and from regulators. Invesco Advisers was forced to pay $17.5 million, WisdomTree paid $4 million, and Keurig Dr. Pepper paid $1.5 million. These are just some of the fines recently handed down by the SEC for greenwashing—falsely or misleadingly inflating claims about sustainability and eco-friendly practices. In the UK, under the Financial Conduct Authority's new anti-greenwashing rule, brands now face enormous fines of up to 10% of turnover for misleading their customers about their sustainability credentials.
It’s becoming clear that these brands can’t continue trying to gain an edge by simply looking green; they have to put their money where their mouth is. As an example, a recent survey found that only 29% of respondents had high levels of trust in products labeled “natural.” This, along with the fact that the same survey found 72% of consumers would like more information explaining exactly how these products are better for the environment, points to the fact that it isn’t a lack of public support that is keeping back more sustainable programs. Instead, the problem is largely data.
Certifications, audits, and other verifying practices require significant capital and the coordination of multiple third parties, and this can significantly cut into any profits made from a sustainable product. However, failing to do so continues the issue of public trust, causing reputational damages and substantial fines.
Fortunately, emerging technology is now available to make data tracking, recording, and veracity much more manageable, all at a much more affordable price for businesses. This includes near-field communication (NFC) technology, digital tracking, and blockchain. NFCs and digital tracking make collecting data much more efficient and can largely be automated. Blockchains are immutable ledgers that can’t be falsified or tampered with. Working together, this can make for a system that is affordable and wholly trusted. Already, some companies have begun tapping into blockchain to address sustainability while preserving trust, transparency, and traceability.
Furthermore, there are already some demonstrable results. The sustainability rewards app Mugshot has created a program that incentivizes reusable mugs over disposable ones, all done through the user’s mobile phone. It’s a small start, but the results are impressive. In just the first five weeks, over 2,000 participants logged 120,000 unique reuses. This amounts to saving 400 kg of plastic and a full 4.5 tons of CO2 emissions. This is a powerful use case that many business models could adapt and expand to incentivize other sustainable activities, and they can easily prove their results (or lack thereof).
What also makes programs like these powerful is that they reward good behavior and they don’t punish bad ones. It has previously been shown how powerful positive motivators can be in steering public behavior, and overall, such strategies are a win-win for everyone. It also creates a feedback loop of rewarding engagement paired with trusted data, which stands to reinforce the impact being made. Companies can even find new, creative ways to push these programs through gamification, which could see users unlocking more lucrative prizes in exchange for more complex actions.
2025 will redefine how we perceive and achieve true sustainability. The world is seeing a call for better means and better standards that allow the public to make informed decisions and do meaningful work on the problem. However, it isn’t just public engagement that matters. There also need to be new mechanisms for quantifying and sharing the manufacturing footprint.
With the help of blockchain, products could come with digital passports that contain verified information about every part of their creation and transport. The data from this could then be used to create a sort of “sustainability score,” that consumers could use to make smart choices. Because all the data going into these scores is transparent, anyone could effectively look into why a product was rated what it was, which gives this information real value.
The fact of the matter is that climate change won’t be solved by empty programs that are designed more to hide the truth than address it. The logical answer is technology. Real progress can be made towards a much more sustainable future by implementing the changes discussed. Public sentiment can be healed, and consumers can even become excited about their ability to finally have a positive impact on the environment.
Now, it’s time for industry leaders to get on board. The world’s biggest companies must begin implementing such processes and act as role models for the rest of the market. As their customers increasingly engage, it will become clear that this model maximizes profits in this new future. There isn’t time to wait any longer, but if done right, systems built from innovative technologies can align what needs to be done with what businesses want, and that’s the real recipe for success.
Sunny Lu, founder and CEO of VeChain since 2015, brings enterprise IT leadership to blockchain technology. His time as CIO of Louis Vuitton China and earlier roles as CTO at Fortune 500 companies shaped VeChain's focus on practical business applications. Under his direction, VeChain has partnered with Boston Consulting Group and global enterprises to implement blockchain solutions across industries. Through VeBetterDAO, Sunny now drives Web3 adoption and tokenization initiatives, applying his nearly twenty years of experience in technology strategy and business operations to expand blockchain's real-world impact.
