The 2023 Sustainable Market Share Index™ shows CPG products with sustainable attributes had the largest single-year increase in dollar market share– more than private label and conventional brands.

The 2023 Sustainable Market Share Index™, an annual research initiative at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) shows consumer packaged goods (CPG) products with sustainable attributes marketed on the package enjoy 18.5% market share, up from 17.3% in the previous year – the largest single-year increase  in the last five years.

Other key findings include:

• Excluding private label purchases (store brands), the market share of sustainable products is 21.5%. Share of sustainable products and private label products are both steadily increasing at the expense of conventional products.
• Market share of sustainable products has increased by 4.8 percentage points since 2015
• Products marketed as sustainable achieved a 5-year CAGR of 9.9%, compared to 6.4% for their conventional counterparts
• In this inflationary period, conventional brands lost share to higher year over year growth from private label (0.4 ppts) and sustainable products (1.2 ppts).
• Sustainable products delivered approximately one-third of all CPG growth, despite representing less than one-fifth of market share.

“Our annual research definitively shows that sustainable products thrive regardless of inflation and present continued opportunities to compete for market share amid the rise of store brands,” said Randi Kronthal-Sacco, Senior Scholar at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB), who leads the research initiative. "We are encouraged to see that consumer demand is driving the creation and incorporation of sustainability. 2023 saw the highest increase in sustainable market share in any single year since we've begun our annual analysis, largely due to the incorporation of sustainable attributes in new product innovation, and veteran brands adopting sustainability in their legacy products.”

The full report, including an update on demographic analysis of sustainable consumers and market share breakdown by category can be found here. NYU Stern CSB Senior Scholar Kronthal-Sacco unveiled the research at the NYU Stern CSB Annual Practice Forum. 

The Sustainable Market Share Index analyzes purchasing data donated by Circana to determine the share of CPG products marketed as sustainable versus their conventionally marketed counterparts. It reviews 36 CPG categories (excluding alcohol and tobacco) comprising ~40% of the total US sales. The index was originally created using data from 2013-2018, and is updated annually.

Previous reports address additional research variables such as the price premiums for sustainable products overall and by category, new product development, availability, and e-commerce.

About NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business

The NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) was founded on the principle that sustainable business is good business. We provide education, conduct research, and influence industry practice by proving the financial value of sustainability for business management and performance. At CSB, we aim to equip future and current corporate leaders with updated business frameworks that embrace proactive and innovative mainstreaming of sustainability, resulting in competitive advantage and resiliency for their companies as well as a positive impact for society. The Sustainable Market Share Index is an annual research initiative to analyze the purchasing behaviors for consumer packaged goods marketed as sustainable.