Sustainability has increasingly become both a consumer demand of beauty and personal care companies, as well as a regulatory demand in recent years, but new data from market intelligence firm Mintel shows that a growing number shoppers are losing faith in our ability to save the planet for a variety of reasons, including a lack of faith in brands' honesty.
Mintel’s Global Outlook on Sustainability report reveals a “crisis in eco-confidence”, according to Mintel, as the number of people who say: “If we act now we still have time to save the planet” has dropped by 10% in the UK market within the past three year – from a majority of 54% in 2021 to a minority of 44% in 2024.
Globally overall, the number has declined from 55% to 48% in the same period, with German consumers having the least faith that there is still time to save the planet – now at 36% down from 49%.
People are also less convinced that they personally can make a difference to the planet’s future, with a fall in the number of consumers globally who believe their actions can make a positive difference to the environment.
Mintel said that this figure has slipped by four percentage points from 51% in 2021 to a minority of 47% in 2024.
In the UK market specifically, where shoppers have previously been very open to being more sustainable, the difference is even more dramatic, falling from 56% to 45%.
Why are consumers no longer optimistic about sustainability?
Commenting on the figures, senior trends consultant at Mintel Consulting, Richard Cope, said: “While the experience of climate change and its existential and public health threats can awaken and engage consumers, a growing realisation of the scale of the increasingly pressing challenges can also erode optimism and create a sense of feeling overwhelmed. This is exactly what we’ve seen play out during the course of this extensive study, with the belief that we still have time to save the planet ebbing away."
According to Cope, increasing exposure to extreme weather events, media coverage of successive COP events and eco-activists all play a role.
“While activism, legal challenges and legislation are serving to educate consumers on their rights and sharpen their awareness of what brands should be doing and what constitutes greenwashing, for some, increasing education is contributing to despondency,” he continued.
“Brands could play a role in reassuring and educating people, but the challenge is that people are sceptical about brands’ green credentials,” he explained.
Perhaps most tellingly, Cope also highlighted 35% of respondents said they didn’t trust companies to be honest about their environmental impact.
Mintel said this global figure has been fairly static since 2021, but it is not improving and poses a major challenge to brands, especially in Europe, where approaching half of consumers voice distrust. In the UK, the figure was now at 35%.
The research found that eco-activists are increasingly welcomed as educators in many regions. Although some are considered controversial, 42% of consumers globally agree that eco-activists have raised their awareness of environmental issues, up from 39% in 2023.
The increasing role of activists has been particularly noticeable in the UK (up from 30% to 37% over the same period) and the US (up from 36% to 43%).
Sustainability: dropping down list of priorities?
On a similar note, Euromonitor had data that demonstrated that: ”when consumers are up against it, sustainability really drops down their list of priorities,” according to Emilie Hood, who is beauty and health senior research analyst at the firm.
“It's not tangible enough for them to be concerned about when they are juggling the stresses of whether they are able to pay bills, or if they have a health scare, or something else like this. It's just not front of mind then,” said Hood.
Euromonitor’s data also showed that 63% of consumers said they tried to have a positive impact on the environment in their daily life, which Hood stated was a “slightly depressing statistic” that she would have hoped had been higher.
Although she also noted the data showed that 22% of consumers said that buying eco-conscious or ethically conscious products makes them feel good, which is potentially a positive sign, because “a lot of purchasing influences are based around that kind of feel-good factor.”
So, what can brands do to build trust among consumers?
As sustainability is a must-have for cosmetics businesses in terms the growing number of green regulations in the Europe and UK markets, and for the future of humanity, how can beauty and personal care brands re-encourage more optimistic attitudes on this topic?
According to Cope, “brands can encourage consumers to make more sustainable choices with clear communications and metrics.”
He noted that the top consumer choice for the type of on-pack sustainability claim or label that would significantly impact their purchasing decision is a Nutriscore-style, simple rating scale (32% of Brits; 30% of global consumers) that shows the environmental impact (e.g. a 1-5 scale or red/yellow/green colour coding) of a product.
“For consumers, a single label could ultimately liberate them from a dizzying, distracting and confusing array of competing organic, fair trade and other claims,” he said.
“The second most popular on-pack sustainability claim or label people are looking for is information on the impact the product has on people (e.g. number of farmers lifted out of poverty) (21% of Brits; 27% of global consumers). This signals a need for the climate crisis – and its solutions – to be humanised,” continued Cope.
“As climate change has developed into a public health crisis of killer heatwaves and pollution, personal health should be positioned and prioritised as a benefit of sustainable products, wherever possible. For brands’ sustainability campaigns to be more effective, they need to focus on showing the benefits to consumers in terms of efficiency, frugality and wellbeing on an individual level, ahead of their benefits to the overall environment,” he concluded.
