2 SRS Points = 1% Revenue Growth: The NielsenIQ Study

The question practitioners have long faced is not whether sustainability perception influences consumer behaviour (it clearly does), but whether that influence is large enough to show up in revenue data.

The answer is yes. And it can be quantified.

In November 2021, Glow completed an analysis comparing Social Responsibility Score data with US food and grocery sales data supplied by NielsenIQ, covering 197 brands over three years and accounting for more than $1 trillion in consumer expenditure. The dataset is among the largest ever assembled for this type of perception-to-revenue analysis.

The finding is statistically significant: a 2-point increase in SRS over the measurement period corresponds to 1 percentage point more in annual revenue growth.

To calibrate the scale: the average SRS for food and grocery brands in this dataset sits around 38-45 (depending on market). The spread between the top decile and bottom decile of brands spans approximately 30 points. A brand moving from the median to the top quartile, roughly 10-12 SRS points, could, on this basis, expect an additional 5-6 percentage points in revenue growth annually.

A $500 million brand with an SRS 10 points above a similarly sized competitor would, on average, expect approximately $25 million more in revenue over three years.

The data is noisy, as any large-scale cross-brand analysis must be. The relationship is not deterministic: brand size, category dynamics, distribution, and pricing all interact with sustainability perception. But the direction is consistent and the magnitude is material enough to warrant treating SRS improvement as a commercial priority rather than a reputational one.

This is the calibration behind the metric. It is why the SRS is a market signal, not a sustainability report.

Two follow-up studies using updated NielsenIQ RMS Scantrack data (January 2023) replicated the finding across 150+ tracked US brands, providing further confidence in the direction if not the precise coefficient.

The signal is real. The question is whether you are measuring it.