Will small direct-to-consumer businesses use their carbon footprint to market products?

When you think about a direct-to-consumer business where you, the consumer, may be motivated in part to make that purchasing decision on the basis of sustainability, you can absolutely see a boom in this.

You can have companies rapidly calculate the carbon footprint of shipping options and displaying that to a consumer and saying, "Sure, if you want your products in two days, here's the carbon footprint. And if you're willing to wait a week, here's the carbon footprint." We're already seeing businesses integrating that kind of technology into their platforms.

An important piece of that is consumer buying behavior. We have certainly seen consumers' awareness of sustainability and its impacts on the buying decision grow over the last decade, but does it dwarf pricing concerns or quality concerns? Most research today says, “Not exactly.” 

Is it a comparative advantage when you're looking at two products that are the same price or the same quality? Absolutely. It absolutely is. We'll see if, over the next decade, that flips and sustainability becomes one of the core buying criteria and not a comparative advantage.