Temporal divergence
Why NTS responds faster than SRS to events - and what the lag between them tells us about the durability of trust.
NTS is GMS's secondary signal - a barometer of public trust that travels alongside SRS. Correlated with SRS but sensitive to different temporal forces, NTS reveals how quickly trust is building, stalling or eroding - and whether perception of sustainability action is keeping pace with broader trust dynamics.
Where SRS measures an organisation's sustainability perception, NTS takes a wider view - capturing the overall level of public trust an organisation holds. The two signals are correlated: organisations with strong SRS scores tend to carry stronger NTS. But they move at different speeds and respond to different triggers.
NTS is particularly sensitive to temporal events - a product incident, a media cycle, a regulatory announcement. SRS, built on structured perception measurement, tends to be more durable. Watching NTS move against a stable SRS score is an early warning system. Watching NTS stay flat while SRS improves is a sign that action is visible but not yet believed.
Measures sustainability perception across defined criteria. Peer-reviewed, versioned, and directly linked to commercial outcomes including revenue, share price and market share.
Measures the breadth of public trust an organisation holds - the signal that precedes or follows perception shifts. Sensitive to temporal events and faster-moving than SRS.
The relationship between SRS and NTS - what drives them apart, what brings them back together, and what divergence signals about future commercial outcomes - is an active area of research for the GMS Institute. As new data becomes available, Institute publications will explore the dynamics of trust and perception as separate but correlated forces.
Why NTS responds faster than SRS to events - and what the lag between them tells us about the durability of trust.
When trust drops, does SRS or NTS recover first? Early research suggests different pathways for different incident types.
NTS-SRS correlation strength varies significantly by sector. Understanding where the gap is widest has direct implications for practitioner strategy.
Current access to NTS data is available through the GMS Portal for licensed organisations. To discuss how NTS can complement your SRS programme - or to understand NTS as a standalone research tool - get in touch.