As keen sustainability watchers, our inboxes are awash with what you might call “sound bite stats”. On LinkedIn this week, there was much excitement about a recent Drapers survey that found 57% of Gen Z and Millennials say sustainability is important when it comes to shopping for clothes, accessories or shoes. This number has increased from 47% in the 2022 survey. Cue high fives and party cone emojis.

However, we have some concerns about these headlines. For the record, Drapers are great and this particular stat was taken out of context from a sponsored report. At best, this sort of data is lazy marketing of niche, salesy whitepapers; but at worst, it is massively distorting the picture of what’s really going on out there.

Most of the headlines are claimed, not actual behaviour

90%* of the headlines only reflect intent or a need to say the right thing when asked. The vast majority of people are worried about sustainability but far fewer are doing anything about it, or only doing something about it very sporadically. One sobering fact that shows intent isn’t translating to action: Shein did $23bn in sales in 2022 and forecast 40% growth in 2023.

*In the spirit of this piece, this is a made-up number – but it’s probably very high!

It’s data, not insight

We have no “why” behind the “what” – we don’t know the drivers. Take another headline: “68% of Gen Z and Millennials have purchased pre-loved or second-hand fashion.” The issue is that we don’t know why. Is it because it is cheaper, great value, they have no choice, they want unique pieces to express their creativity, they are worried about environmental impact, they want to support charity – or a bit of all of these? To compound this, we don’t have any real behaviour data: what percentage of their spend, total purchases, and so on.

Methodologies designed for headlines, not learning

Most “sound bite stats” are based on large samples (good) but poorly designed studies, usually with the primary aim of getting a headline rather than any real understanding (bad). This often means superficial findings and a frustrating lack of clarity around correlation versus causation. There is no way of working out what is actually going on behind the numbers.

It might be a bit geeky, but we have to get a bit deeper into this. The say-do gap which sits behind most of this data is critical to change. We need to understand how businesses and brands can cross the chasm between attitude and actual real-world behaviour. The reliance on attitudinal and intent-based numbers paints an unhelpfully rosy picture and creates unrealistic expectations. The sales data doesn’t lie – and it suggests there is much still to do.

In this week’s news

Nick Pye
Co-Founder
Mangrove