Hot or Not? Marketing Trends for 2025 Stress Tested – Trend #2: Brands continue to push ‘sustainability’ messaging

Are the marketing trends that everyone is talking about all they’re cracked up to be?  We’ve stress tested them to see if you should be following them, or doing things a different way in 2025.  In this series we look at the top five marketing trends – read on for Trend #2 and then visit our Food For Thought page for the rest of the series.

Trend 2: Brands continue to push ‘sustainability’ messaging

Brands will continue to push ‘sustainability’ messaging in 2025, in a bid to appeal to consumers’ shifting expectations of how the brands they buy from behave. This trend could manifest itself as an increasing number of eco-friendly products, transparent and fair supply chains, as well as specific marketing campaigns that emphasise sustainable business practices, or social and environmental impact.

Stress-test result: Sustainability is not just what you say, it’s about authenticity

In recent years, consumer brands have invested heavily in positioning themselves as more ethical and sustainable. Increasing awareness of climate change has led many consumers to think more carefully about the companies they purchase from.

Indeed, recent research has shown that sustainability plays a role in the decision-making process for 80% of consumers.  

But most ‘purpose-driven marketing’ is too generic—consider all of the big energy companies that are talking about Net Zero and reducing carbon emissions. When this is at category level, no individual business is able to differentiate. You need to have a deeper narrative here that is connected with the tangible actions you have taken.

Consumers can smell BS and, increasingly, are not impacted by this type of generic messaging as a result of overexposure and they will default to price and convenience as bigger factors. 

Recent controversy around high profile ‘sustainability’ certifications, like the B Corp Certification, have raised legitimate questions over how rigorous the criteria really are. Posting to LinkedIn, the founder of ReallyRecycyle.com strongly criticised B Lab (the non-profit behind the B Corp Certification), highlighting how B Corp has previously certified ‘polluting companies’.

In addition, the costs of doing business sustainably will likely come under increased scrutiny in 2025 as many G7 government priorities change and the sustainability imperative is challenged in favour of lower costs and cheaper alternatives.

Brands need to understand what their customers actually want.  According to recent research from MIT the traditional view that there is a distinction between those customers who care about sustainability and will pay more for a product and those customers who don’t care and won’t pay more is outdated.

The truth is that there is a spectrum of consumers, and most fall into the middle ground—sustainability is part of their decision making process, but they want to know that it is purposeful and that brands are taking ethical actions.  Being seen to be ‘green’ is not enough.

“Consumers can smell BS and, increasingly, are not impacted by this generic messaging.” – Bethan Vincent

Sustainability messaging saturation—and subsequent consumer fatigue—is reducing the amount of cut through for brands pushing their green credentials.  Authenticity counts for more than ever before.

Key takeaways

1. Many businesses don’t sufficiently understand the needs of their customers when it comes to sustainability.

2. Sustainability is part of a consumer’s decision making process, alongside many other factors

3. Brands need to be authentic—the difference between success and failure when it comes to sustainability is how you behave as an organisation, not what you say.