This article is part of Bain’s 2026 CEO Sustainability Report

Explore the report

Each of the past four years, Bain has asked thousands of consumers in countries across the globe about their attitudes and behaviors regarding environmental sustainability. This year’s findings paint a picture that challenges conventional wisdom in important ways.

• Concern about sustainability is climbing, driven by consumers’ own experiences with extreme weather. For the first time in three years, environmental concern is on the rise (see Figure 1). This year, 85% of people said they worry about environmental sustainability, up from 79% last year. The primary cause continues to be extreme weather events, often the floods, heat waves, and wildfires that consumers see with their own eyes (see Figure 2). Worry about extreme weather events, particularly in one’s own country, is higher today than it was four years ago.
  
  

• People are living more sustainably, but their primary motivation is often something other than the environment. This is a consumer version of the “do-say” gap we identified in companies last year: People act sustainably but often don’t describe their actions as sustainable. Consumers limit meat and avoid microplastics, for example, because doing so is perceived to be healthier. They limit home energy use because it saves money. Different motivations are leading to the same direction of travel.
  
  

• Two evolving forces—health and resilience—are changing the way consumers engage with sustainability. The definition of sustainability has broadened in consumers’ minds beyond “environmentally friendly” to include things they think of as healthy, such as how “natural” a product is. Health continues to be a top purchasing criterion across categories as its definition expands to converge with sustainability. Consumers prioritize resilience by doing things such as buying local to ensure availability of goods. These two powerful motivations for sustainable action will only accelerate.
  
  

• The context in which consumers decide has fundamentally changed. AI tools and product information apps are the new intermediaries. What used to require reading a label, running a Google search, or just guessing, is now available in seconds in a format that’s easy to understand. Consumers get a specific answer to a particular question at the very moment of purchase decision. It's a profound structural change to the way transparent product information reaches the consumer.

By doing what is good for them, consumers have (inadvertently) found convergence between their needs and sustainability more broadly. This creates an opportunity for companies to meet the consumer where they are, at key decision points, by leading with the criteria that are actually changing behavior. 

Concern about the environment is climbing, especially in fast-growing markets

Extreme weather events remain consumers’ top environmental worry. Overall, 65% of respondents say their concern about environmental sustainability has intensified over the past two years. Consumers in fast-growing markets, which are more directly affected by extreme weather, remain significantly more concerned than those in developed markets (95% vs. 79%, respectively). They are particularly concerned about extreme weather events and negative environmental issues where they live, such as floods and wildfires they can see.

People of all ages are highly concerned about environmental sustainability. While younger generations remain relatively more worried (92% of Gen Z say they are concerned), a surprisingly large percentage of boomers (77%) are also concerned.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Everyone’s living more sustainably, even skeptics

Consumers are quietly building sustainability into their daily routines (see Figure 3). Sustainable habits continue to consistently increase year over year across all categories. Eighty-three percent of respondents have adopted three or more sustainable lifestyle habits, up from 73% in 2023. The top habits happen to be practical, mainstream, and growing: 59% of people limit home energy use; 56% recycle. Eighty-one percent believe their individual actions have a meaningful impact on environmental sustainability.

When asked why they adopt specific sustainable habits, in half the cases the primary reason is something other than the environment, such as affordability, health, personal preference, or convenience. But even when environmental sustainability is not the main motivation, respondents see it as an additional benefit, and it serves to reinforce continued usage.

It’s particularly striking that sustainable habits are growing even among those who say they don’t care about sustainability. In 2023, 35% of such consumers had three or more sustainable lifestyle habits. That jumped to nearly 50% this year.  

Figure 3

Health and resilience are reshaping how consumers engage with sustainability today  

Health remains the top purchase criterion for most consumers, above environmental sustainability, price, and brand—something we have seen for multiple years (see Figure 4). What’s changing is that consumers’ interpretation of health is moving closer to sustainability as they focus on attributes such as “natural,” “clean,” and “free of PFAS additives and pesticides.” When asked what they associate sustainable fresh food with, respondents’ top answers were “natural ingredients,” “healthy,” and “organic.”

Figure 4

This commitment to health extends to a willingness to pay more. Consumers report they are willing to pay 18% more for a product with sustainability benefits. They will pay an even greater premium—24%—for something that offers both health and sustainability benefits.

With sustainability and health converging in the consumer's mind, brands that are healthier by design, with natural ingredients, fewer chemicals, and less processing, all benefit. The companies investing in this overlap are building products that genuinely meet both needs. Consider the health properties Danone is emphasizing, or how start-ups like Wild, a deodorant brand bought by Unilever, go beyond simply claiming sustainability to describe their goods as paraben- and phthalate-free. Companies making sure to accurately communicate these benefits, in line with upcoming European labeling regulation, will have flagged to consumers important value offered by their product. 

Those that don’t clearly communicate will find consumers applying their own stringent health filter. People are actively avoiding specific substances (see Figure 5). Seventy-two percent of survey respondents say that today they change what they buy based on PFAS, BPA, or microplastics—substances many consumers would not have heard of a few years ago.

Figure 5

The second force reshaping consumer behavior is a heightened focus on resilience. When the world feels uncertain, consumers want products that feel dependable and that are locally available. This extends to wanting to ensure local businesses survive.

Affordability is an important aspect as well. The price of gasoline and energy and the cost of living generally are global respondents’ two greatest concerns. This year’s run-up in energy prices has sparked a surge in demand for solar panels in Europe.

“Buying local” has been among the top five lifestyle habits the past two years. More than half of respondents shop locally more than they did before. Asked why, their top reasons were supporting and developing the business infrastructure where they live and ensuring security of supply. Twenty-three percent also listed safety and reliability given global uncertainty.

For a consumer anxious about tariffs and energy costs, buying local is a hedge. "Local" signals freshness, safety, economic solidarity, and supply chain independence all at once. In consumers' minds, local is also seen as healthier, possibly stemming from the connection between freshness and nutrition. Buying local delivers on both motivations at once. 

AI is making it easier for individual consumers to find what they want and is altering purchase behavior

Health and resilience, like every other product attribute, are now filtered through a new mediator: AI. AI tools and product information apps are what consumers increasingly turn to with their questions about what's healthy or sustainable. That’s where they discover, research, and compare products, and that means brands no longer fully control the answer. It’s a structural shift in how all product information—including health, resilience, and sustainability—translates into purchases, often at the moment of choice.

This revolution is especially important for sustainability because most consumers struggle to correctly identify what is and what isn’t sustainable. Our study shows that, on average, 68% of consumers don't know or get it wrong when asked to choose the lower-carbon option between pairs of food products and packaging options. There are many reasons for this, including confusing labels and often-opaque brand communication, but the fact remains that consumers genuinely struggle to make sustainable choices, and they know it (see Figure 6).

Figure 6

If in the past a consumer had to rely on packaging claims or some guesswork, today they ask AI and get an answer in seconds. Which of my options is healthiest for my child? Which contains fewer additives? Which is more nutritious?

Research by Bain Consumer Lab has found that 30% of people globally use AI daily. Forty-three percent are replacing search engines with chatbots some, if not all, of the time. Three-quarters of Europeans and Americans use Gen AI in their personal life, and 60% of searches in those markets now end without a click-through to another website. Consumers are increasingly getting what they need from the AI summary itself.

Sustainability and health questions are a growing share of this trend (see Figure 7). Nearly half (48%) of consumers who use AI say they have used it in the past 12 months to help them live more sustainably. In the context of shopping, 43% use AI to determine the healthier product, followed by 38% who use it to recommend eco-friendly products.

Figure 7

Today, 41% of consumers use product information apps such as Yuka, Open Food Facts, and Bobby Approved, which will increasingly deploy AI to evaluate products on sustainability criteria. With the scan of a barcode or quick photo of the product, users can instantly access an analysis of a product's health and environmental impact. Seventy-nine percent of users say these apps have changed their purchases. Retailers and consumer goods companies are paying attention. After being flagged by app Yuka and in response to its own customer research, Walmart committed to “one of the largest private brand reformulations in retail history”: removing artificial dyes and 30 other additives by 2027.

When consumers use these platforms, they most commonly check whether a product is healthy or safe (59%), whether it’s minimally processed (44%), and its environmental footprint (42%) (see Figure 8).

Figure 8

Packaging still matters. Labels and certifications remain the No. 1 way consumers judge sustainability in store, but packaging now must speak to two audiences: the consumer in the aisle and the AI on their phone. Companies often design communication at a corporate level without linking it to brand or product information. That is one reason it is not always picked up by AI. Companies must clearly communicate relevant product information, or risk AI elevating information from sources beyond their influence.  

The “so what” for CEOs and brands 

1. Sell the AND, not sustainability alone. Wherever possible, lead your message with health and resilience, since those are attributes consumers base decisions on. Create products where these benefits reinforce one another. Prioritize sustainability investments that strengthen your brand and your product’s health and resilience. A food company that supports farmers who use regenerative agriculture would be a good example of a corporate action that can also boost the healthiness and resilience of its products. A winning product will meet the consumer’s needs first and foremost AND also meet the needs of the planet.
   
   

2. AI is going to do a lot of your talking for you. The conversation with consumers has changed, and how companies can influence it has too. Companies must adapt to a world in which consumers increasingly rely on AI conversations, not company-created content, to explore and evaluate products. These conversations are specific to what that customer wants or needs and create a new level of transparency by surfacing answers that can be hard to find. Packaging still communicates at the shelf, but AI has become an authority with increasing influence. Rather than communicate about sustainability at the corporate level, companies should offer transparent data and communication about their products and brands. Information, claims, and disclosures must be legible by both humans and machines. The way Nestlé talks about its decision to use regeneratively grown wheat in Kit Kat illustrates the direction in which brands should be moving.
   
   

3. Be rapid and agile in response to consumers’ evolving needs. The speed and simplicity with which you gain insights into your consumers has changed too. Just as AI is making it easier for your consumers to understand your product, new data-driven tools are making it easier for you to better understand your consumer. Stress testing value propositions with synthetic customers can identify what consumers need, respond to, and reject much earlier in the product and marketing cycle, saving time and money.

Read the Next Section

The Energy Transition Runs Through Asia

Read our 2026 CEO Sustainability Report

EXPLORE THE FULL REPORT DOWNLOAD THE PDF

More from the report

• Navigating Sustainability in an Age of Divergence

• For Consumers, Sustainability Isn’t Gone, But It Is Changing

• The Energy Transition Runs Through Asia

• You’re Asking the Wrong Questions about Climate Resilience

• Make Better. Sell Better. Protect Better: How Sustainable AI Creates Value

• The New Investment Playbook for Sustainability