• by Danielle Oster , Yesterday

Consumers are far more likely to say that they shop consciously, with an eye toward sustainability, than they are to actually follow through. But there are ways brands can address this issue.

“Roughly 76% of consumers will say that they shop consciously, and yet what we found is it’s half [who are actually conscious consumers],” Phil Haid, founder and CEO of creative impact agency Public Inc., told Marketing Daily.

Public’s “The Conscious Consumer 2025” report — which surveyed 3,000 consumers in the U.S. and Canada — found that while 76% of respondents identified as “conscious consumers,” values-driven purchases only accounted for 38% of their buying decisions.

A primary culprit for the gap, according to the report, is the claims marketers use to promote such products. Around half (roughly 49%) of consumers, and 87% of highly conscious consumers, end up abandoning products before purchasing them due to unclear claims around sustainability. Relatedly, the report found that consumers are much more likely to respond to claims centered around immediate, personal benefits, rather than abstract promises about future environmental impact.

“In the absence of understanding around why the say-do gap exists, there's a tendency to villainize the consumer and weaponize their intent,” Caleigh Farrell, vice president of research at Public Inc. and the lead author of the study, told Marketing Daily. “Consumers haven't failed sustainability, sustainability has failed to meet consumers where they are."

“When we talk about products for future generations, it moves lower on people’s priority list,” Haid added. “What has outsized impact is claims that focus on ‘me, not we.”

The study tested claims in consumables and wearables categories, picked because they include products people interact with on a daily basis. Claims around local sourcing and clean ingredients were the top-performing claims in both categories, across consumer segments; the lowest-performing claims were science-based promises like “certified organic” and “carbon-neutral.”

Green claims, like “carbon neutral” and “water-less use” were four times less effective than the top-performing claims. “I think the main culprit there is they lack the personal, direct benefit that some of the other claims have,” Farrell said. “How do we bring environmental claims down to the everyday reality of the consumer, so it has salient influence on how they make their decisions and why?”

The findings have clear applications for brands, according to Farrell. “We need to stop speaking in very jargon-filled ways, and think about the target audience we need to move,” she said. “There has been this tendency to preach to the already converted….We need to speak to the flip-floppers, and move them up the consciousness ladder.”

For a case study, Public cited Yeti, the American premium cooler company that markets itself as a sustainable brand, yet is able to appeal to consumers on the opposite end of the spectrum from “sustainability stewards."  This group of “apathetic actors” represents around 31% of consumers, skewing conservative and male, who don’t make values-based purchasing decisions. Yeti “completely dominated” with such consumers, Farrell said, thanks to its “phenomenal durability message.”

The finding contradicts two assumptions often made about sustainability, that consumers who have opted out of conscious purchasing habits will always do so, and that consumers’ unwillingness to pay more is responsible for the underperformance of sustainability-minded brands.

“Cost is always a factor when we shop. It's a lazy argument to summarize the say-do gap as cost-driven,” Farrell said. “There’s nothing about it that’s unique to the sustainability sector.”

“I think that simplification of language to meet people where they are actually helps brands way-find their way through a difficult socioeconomic time,” Farrell said,” calling it “a winning strategy no matter what's happening in the world” and an “interesting way to move through the mud that we find ourselves in, and move conscious consumerism forward.”