Although sustainability as a concept incorporates multiple facets, it predominantly translates into concerns about environment and more specifically climate change, according to our latest TrendLens™ 2022 study of global affluent consumers. The pandemic has accelerated (and increased) awareness of purpose driven consumption, as can be noted from the attitude and adoption of sustainable lifestyles of affluent and HNW consumers.
We observe that this adoption varies by demographics and geographies. Awareness, context and age are dominant variables influencing consumers and their perceptions.
Affluent millennials, boomers, and women are more prominent in their adoption of sustainability as a guiding principle in their decision making. The younger demographic is more receptive to messaging around sustainability and consequently they also are more aware in their understanding of the concept. For instance, they look at sustainability more broadly and also include social causes as well as governance in the mix.
Increasingly we also see consumers in Asia, and more specifically in China, being aware and using sustainability and environmentalism as a motivation and even screening criterion in their decision making.
Our analysis of millennials and zoomers in China shows that these two demographic cohorts have in fact been looking at other facets of sustainability, such as employee and consumer safety, fair trade and even sourcing of raw material and production.