🌱 Step inside America’s “clean home” revolution: 5 trends in consumer choices

+ we give you the latest good news round-up

Oct 28, 2024

Happy Monday! Every Monday we suit up and get serious - digging into a climate topic, rounding up the past week’s Good(s) News and sharing updates from across FTF, so you’re never out of the loop.

If you are a long-time reader of the newsletter, then you’ll know we love a clever and sustainable product for our homes. Today we learn that having a clean home doesn’t just mean getting a sparkle using a non-toxic refillable cleaning spray… Charlotte, our lovely guest writer (and FTF advisor), shows us that it can encompass so much more! Let this week’s article be an encouragement (and a treasure trove for your next business case) that more consumers are catching on about sustainability.

After you read through those juicy insights, we share the latest good news in the consumer goods x sustainability space, and a little bit about what the FTF team has been up to.

> In Focus

Inside America’s “Clean Home” Revolution

Something pretty wild is happening in homes all across America — and it’s not everyone binge-ing Love Is Blind season 7.

I work at a climate media start-up called The Cool Down that reaches 1 in 8 Americans, and what we’re seeing across the board is a major shift to “clean homes.” Think: compost over trash cans, upcycled food as home-cooked meals, and heat pump water heaters in the crawl space & solar panels on the roof. You know, the things you’re probably already doing as someone involved in the climate space, but that mainstream America hadn’t yet been doing at scale.

Point being: How we power, furnish, and scrub our homes (not to mention how we cook and relax in them) is rapidly evolving — and given that homes directly account for about 20% of US carbon emissions, this is a massive opportunity in the global sustainability movement toward net-zero goals, as well as a huge unlock for healthier, less wasteful lifestyles.

It’s also changing the way brands reach consumers.

So I spent the summer pulling from The Cool Down’s massive 35M+ monthly audience to see what exactly this all looked like, going room by room throughout a typical house to see what was changing. The end result was a massive insights report called “The Future of Our Homes,” and I thought I’d share some highlights in this guest post.

Major trends in the “clean home” transformation

First and foremost, what I think is most fascinating is that, while this shift toward “clean homes” has huge environmental benefits, what we’re seeing through our polling (not focus groups, mind you) is that these decisions are driven primarily by saving money and living healthier.

To really boil it down, mainstream Americans are drawn to personal benefits before planetary benefits — and both is a killer combo. That’s what makes this “clean home” shift so incredible. For example:

🍳 We’re willing to try something new in the kitchen. The Cool Down’s data shows that a large majority of consumers (80%!) are open to making their kitchen habits more sustainable, for example by eating more plant-based foods (or going “flexitarian”) and switching away from gas stoves to high-tech cooking tools like induction stoves. (More insights here.)

🥑 And we’re eating with food waste in mind. Food waste has hit a tipping point for consumers, and it’s much more of a personal and identity-based issue than something like “saving money” or “helping the planet” can fully capture. When grocery and food providers get it right (e.g., what Flashfood and Too Good To Go are doing), millions of our readers pay attention. (More insights here.)

🧼 We’re focused on keeping toxins off our bodies and out of bathroom cabinets. Clean beauty products were once a niche trend within the $100 billion U.S. personal care industry — but we’re now seeing that when our audience is choosing health and beauty products, ingredients are top of mind before brand name and even before cost. (More insights here.)

🛋️ We’re decorating with durable, recyclable materials. TCD polling shows a strong mainstream appetite for sustainable furniture options (read: not “fast furniture”), especially because of the durable materials they’re built with. Case in point 👇

As someone who just had to buy a new couch (the price of which is still seared into my frontal lobe), I can confirm the appeal of long-term durability is spot-on. (More insights here.)

🌻 And we’re in the garden — like, a lot: Editorially speaking, gardening content delivers again and again for us — we’ve pulled in over 17 million page views for articles with just the word tomato in them. That’s partly due to the fact that 90% of our TCD audience planned to garden this summer, and we’re seeing strong mainstream interest in beautification options that don’t involve excessive use of water, fertilizer, gas-powered tools, and other resource-intensive inputs.

Brands that are capitalizing on the sunflower vibes include major retailers like The Home Depot (it expects 85% of the outdoor lawn equipment it sells will be electric by 2028) and start-ups like Yardzen (which is on a mission to show mainstream America just how simple it is to cultivate “rewilded” natural outdoor spaces). Plus, it’s great for your home’s resale value.

All of which is also nice news because yard and garden topics are a great funnel into climate action. (More insights here.)

Bottom line

The “clean home” momentum we’re seeing through our audience at The Cool Down toward a healthier, cooler future — especially on a day-to-day basis in homes across America — opens significant white space for companies to move into.

It’s just a matter of finding the right angle, so don’t forget the personal before planetary bit, odd as that is to say in a newsletter devoted to sustainability.

> Follow up with…

> Last week in consumer goods x climate…

The Good(s) News

»Up and coming brands

🎯 Voyage Foods announced it will open a manufacturing facility in Ohio to produce its cocoa-free chocolate, nut-free spreads and bean-free coffee. Once construction is complete, the factory will have the capacity to produce 10,000 metric tons of cocoa-free chocolate annually.

🎯 Yespers, a Dutch food firm, has announced that they are opening the world’s first ‘total value’ factory, located in The Hague. The apple processing factory values and uses every single part of the fruit, like dried stems made into apple tea blend. This means it produces zero waste and utilises every residual flow (leftover materials and by-products).

🎯 Original Coffee and VINTAGE ROOTS LIMITED announced that they are B Corp certified.

🎯 Forca Foods announced they are making milk from watermelon seed to combat the water footprint of traditional dairy alternatives. Watermelon seeds need 72% less water than oats and 53% less than soy, which are both among the mainstream plant-based milks.

»Bigger organisations

⭐ The Hershey Company has announced that they are signing a five-year agreement with nine cocoa cooperatives in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, as part of its $500m Cocoa For Good strategy to improve cocoa farmer livelihoods.

»Industry wins

⚡ Fortum Recycling & Waste announced that they are able to produce the world’s first biodegradable plastic from CO2 emissions from waste incineration at their Riihimaki, Finland, plant. Their Carbon2x program piloted carbon capture and utilization in 2022, aimed to capture carbon dioxide emissions from the incineration of non-recyclable waste and use them to produce sustainable products, such as biodegradable plastic.

Sustainable food-scale up Yespers has secured financing for world's first Total Value factory - ImpactCity — *Two employees of Yespers processing the entire apple. Source: Impact City*

Want good news sooner? We post our top 5 stories in our LinkedIn newsletter every Friday! If your CPG brand has good news to share, let us know.👇

> In case you missed it

Want more? Here’s what’s happening across FTF at the moment…

We spoke to Ben Woodliffe, Taproom Supervisor and Sustainability Lead at DEYA, last week for The Check-Out. Catch up to read about what they are doing about their scope 3 emissions and his view on transparency.
Lexi caught us up on her time at Sustainable Brands ‘24. We look forward to sharing more on what she learned with you in the coming weeks.
We’re diving into the topic of product carbon footprints and lifecycle analysis. If you have a question about the topic that you would like us to address, get in touch with Laura.

Want more? Hang tight for ‘The Check-Out’ this Thursday for the latest brands in our basket. In the meantime, if you have any topics that you would like us to dig into, ping us an email on info@followingthefootprints.com to say hi!

Much love,

Team FTF