C-level leaders are increasingly realizing the market won’t evolve on its own. It must be built. This blogpost, part of our ongoing CEM Study series, discusses examples from Simon-Kucher’s work on how emitters and clean tech providers have shaped demand instead of waiting for it. We also distill strategic priorities for industrial leaders to adopt sustainability in their businesses.
Sustainability has historically been treated as an operational and compliance challenge. The result: billions invested in doing better for the planet with too little thought given to how those efforts translate into value for customers and the bottom line. In emerging low-carbon markets, success depends not only on engineering and compliance, but also on how well companies shape demand, define value, and influence buyer expectations. From cement and chemicals to carbon capture and engineered materials, companies are developing low-carbon alternatives that exceed regulatory requirements. Yet in many cases, they struggle to find traction because the demand environment is undefined, fragmented, or immature.
Winning sustainably and profitably requires shaping markets
Increasingly, our work focuses on shaping markets to realize profits from green investment. In a recent project with a global cement and concrete firm, leaders had invested in new sustainable products for the North American market to meet global standards. But, the local markets weren’t ready. Customers were skeptical about adopting a potentially inferior new product, regulators hadn’t made clear guidelines for what constituted as a “green” cement product, and every competing firm used different benchmarks to advertise the sustainability of their mix.
However, the new “green” cement was not an inferior product. Final hardness and set times were improved in addition to significant emissions reductions. In fact, customers were willing to pay up to 5% more based on the improved performance characteristics alone. Even if our client marketed with a performance-based strategy, they would need to do more to ensure their sustainable mixes satisfied carbon accounting standards from regulators and that their products’ sustainability credits could stand out from greenwashed competing products. Taking these steps could unlock even more upside and ensure long-term viability of their sustainable products.
Now, our client’s product roadmap has evolved beyond product engineering with some light marketing. Trade group activities, regulator engagement, and value-based selling have become equally important. The payoff went beyond financial return: they built market predictability in the face of growing uncertainty from geopolitical actions (e.g., US tariffs).
Key insight: To unlock the full value of green innovations, firms must go beyond product performance and actively shape market conditions. Regulatory engagement, industry standards, and value-based selling are key to overcoming skepticism, differentiating from greenwashing, and ensuring long-term profitability.
Sustainability tech providers need innovative commercial models to win
Emitters, like the cement firm above, need sustainable profits to fund large CAPEX investments to decarbonize. Carbon capture is one such technology with great promise, but high cost and uncertain performance holds back adoption. We partnered with a start-up that invented a system designed to significantly improve efficiency and lower operating costs. Their pain-point: How to monetize this technology and sell it to heavy emitters still figuring out the means to fund these projects?
Just like emitters, carbon capture providers must shape the market. Rather than sticking with traditional, high CAPEX value structures, we helped define a mixed CAPEX/OPEX offer structure that emphasized savings from new technology and de-risked investment for wary buyers. Customers resonated with our new approach and were willing to spend 10-20% more given the new offer structure.
Key insight: To drive adoption in capital-intensive sustainability sectors, technology providers must rethink traditional pricing and delivery models. Innovative commercial structures that share risk, emphasize value, and highlight operational savings can unlock customer willingness to pay and accelerate market traction.
From supplier to market shaper
Both examples highlight a deeper truth: industrial companies can’t rely on downstream pull alone. They must help create conditions for demand to emerge. That means engaging buyers in addition to regulators, financiers, and adjacent suppliers to create:
- Clear definitions and standards
- Buyer confidence through data and verification
- Commercial constructs that balance cost with compliance or ESG goals
Market formation is rarely a solo act. In many industrial contexts, new products only succeed when upstream, downstream, and regulatory actors move in sync. Whether in green packaging, clean fuels, or alternative materials, shaping demand often requires partnerships with technology providers, policy enablers, and everyone in between. In the case of PEF, a bio-based plastic alternative, success depends on product performance, aligning processors with new machinery, winning early commitments from CPG brands, and securing regulatory and recycling system integration. Without that ecosystem, the product’s value case struggles to stand.
This is especially relevant in North America, where green momentum is increasingly market-driven as compared to Europe’s more policy-led push. In the U.S., successful sustainability strategies often start with building business cases, not following mandates.
What leaders need to do now
The shift from ESG ambition to commercial sustainability requires more than just better storytelling. It relies on market architecture. Successful companies are:
- Aligning with customers early to co-create specs and metrics
- Bundling offerings to reduce risk and reframe value
- Advocating for standards that reduce buyer uncertainty
- Adapting GTM strategies to demand maturity, not idealized end states
Strategic priorities for shaping markets
Three strategic priorities are emerging for industrials entering markets that don’t yet exist:
1. Anchor sustainability in performance, not philosophy
Sustainability needs a hard link to customer value: whether it's reliability, risk mitigation, or regulatory head start. The cement case proves that carbon content alone doesn’t close deals.
2. Adapt pricing & offering models to market maturity
In immature markets, simplicity matters. Asset-light or service-wrapped models often reduce friction. Carbon capture is more compelling when it’s positioned as a managed outcome and not a hardware sale.
3. Shape the ecosystem, not just the buyer
Growth comes faster when definitions, data, and incentives align. Leading players invest early in shaping the ecosystem: from standardization to verification partnerships and policy engagement.
At Simon-Kucher, we help clients in Chemicals, Energy, and Materials industries align commercialization models with market maturity, shaping demand where it doesn’t yet exist, and accelerating growth where it does. Connect with our experts today to learn how we can help you commercialize sustainability in unready markets.
Next in the series: Strategic resilience and resource independence
In the next blogpost, we’ll shift from market-building to risk buffering and explore how companies across Chemicals, Energy, and Materials are increasing their strategic resilience.
From circularity and resource localization to raw material security and nearshoring, we’ll examine how leaders are reducing dependency and building industrials’ staying power in a volatile world.
