Net zero relies on more meaningful data
A milestone year for the wrong reasons: 2024 officially became the first year to pass the 1.5 degrees global warming limit. Anyone saying ‘the time for action is now’ is already too late.
Arguments about who should carry the weight of the blame are a waste of time. We all have a part to play in exiting what UN secretary António Guterres has called a ‘road to ruin’. Our individual and household actions have the potential to contribute over a quarter of the total emissions reductions needed to reach the targets of the Paris agreement. That makes behaviour change a vital part of tackling the climate crisis and meeting the UN’s sustainable development goals.
Success stories like the growth of pre-loved fashion and move to electric vehicles show it can be done. But for every brand influencing positive action in their category there’s another trying to make a difference without moving the needle. Their challenge lies in contradictory consumers: people who consistently reveal a value-action gap between what they say matters to them, and what they actually do about it.
The reality is that more than eight in 10 people want to make more sustainable choices, but fewer than three in 10 are actively changing their behaviour.
But the gap itself doesn’t tell us why people say one thing and do another – that leads marketers to build their strategies on incomplete data. With the climate crisis at a critical juncture, we need better insight into what distinguishes people’s attitudes, values and behaviours, and what kind of research can gather meaningful data that will drive action.
Getting sustainability segmentation right
Most existing segmentations around sustainability focus on two primary inputs: attitudes or values, and behaviours. Using new research techniques and asking different kinds of questions, we have been able to sharpen how brands can capture and make sense of claimed attitudes and behaviours.
We started by building on our existing behavioural knowledge about the deep-seated beliefs that lead people to behave sustainably – or the barriers that stop them from doing so. We then asked people about the frictions they face in turning sustainable behaviours into action, specifically in transport, housing, diet, purchases, waste, collective action (such as campaigning), water usage, and investing money for positive impact.
What we found out was:
1. Environmental and social issues are very different. Sustainability professionals often assume that everyone who cares about the planet also cares about social issues. But sustainability means many things to different people, and the way these issues intersect simply isn’t common knowledge at a general population level.
2. People are more likely to act if they believe they’ll have an impact. Marketers who inject hope are in a better position to encourage positive behaviour change – without optimism, there’s little motivation, even for people who care deeply.
3. We might not like to admit it, but peer pressure is a powerful motivator. We all want to look good in front of certain people – that’s why so many consumers signal that they care about sustainability even if they take few steps to back this up. It doesn’t mean these people can’t live sustainable lives – but they need to be approached differently to those who genuinely want to make a difference.
4. The behaviours that are hardest to adopt can be the most effective way of breaking the population down into powerful segments that reveal to marketers where to focus their efforts. Changing how we travel and what we eat are widely accepted as two of the more impactful behaviours but are also harder to integrate into our daily lives. In contrast, waste reduction is the gateway sustainability behaviour for many people and businesses – but it’s so well established it tells us very little about what distinguishes people’s values and actions.
5. You can’t climb a barrier if you don’t know what it is. Understanding the deep-rooted frictions that stop people from adopting more sustainable behaviours is vital. These can be very different by market. In the US, for example, the most common friction to travelling more sustainably comes from a lack of interest. In the UK, it’s because people don’t think they’ll make a difference.
Knowing people feel pressure to look as though they’re doing their bit, we didn’t always ask direct questions to uncover these insights. In fact, questioning consumers about their frictions gave clearer insights and resulted in fewer people claiming that they act in sustainable ways. We also primed respondents for honest answers, giving them permission to say they what they don’t do. This generated a six percentage-point lower average claim that people took certain actions across all markets and behaviours. That might sound like bad news for the planet, but it’s good news if we want to accurately understand how people think, feel and act when it comes to sustainability – we can’t change their behaviours without this knowledge.
Insights need to go beyond blunt stereotyping of consumers. We have a huge opportunity to scale the positive impact we have in marketing by exploring deeper segmentations, not just in research but in brand strategy, product development and advertising to make the sustainability journey easier for consumers – and inspire real change.
Mark Fisher is partner, sustainable transformation practice, Kantar

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