Canvas8 reports are available to Canvas8 subscribers. What follows is an adaptation of the research; the full report can be accessed via the View Article link.
Abstract
A few years ago, sustainability was everywhere you looked. Carbon pledges on cereal boxes, recycling badges on detergent, ads promising that the right shampoo could help save the planet. Every purchase came with a small moral upgrade, and brands competed to be the loudest about it. Walk the same aisles today and it’s strangely hushed. Across 31 countries, including the US, the share of people who encountered sustainability messaging dropped from 49% in 2023 to 36% in 2025, and trust among those who still saw it slid from 74% to 65%. (GlobeScan, January 2026) The silence even has a name, ‘greenhushing’. The obvious conclusion is that everyone has given up. The real question is whether that’s true. The research draws on interviews with consumer psychologist Remi Trudel (Boston University) and economist Thomas Lyon (University of Michigan).
The findings
Concern is still there; the capacity to act on it isn't. Willingness to pay a sustainability premium has halved: in 2025, just 12% of US shoppers would pay 10–19.9% more for a sustainable product, against 22% in each of the two years before. (Business Wire, March 2025) Worry hasn't gone anywhere, with 65% of Gen Z and 63% of millennials globally reporting environmental anxiety in the past month. (Deloitte, May 2025) Wallets have. Overall US prices have risen 24.3% since January 2021, food 26.5% and rent 28.1% (Statista, March 2026), and nine in ten Americans describe a full-blown cost-of-living crisis. (Talker Research, February 2026) Remi Trudel's framing is the useful one: sustainability hasn't stopped mattering, it has gone dormant. "Messaging that assumes sustainability is already goal-relevant is failing not because people don't care but because the goal simply isn't active at the moment of decision."
Small rewards are crowding out long-term sacrifices. 62% of Americans buy themselves a treat at least once a month, and 73% say those small indulgences matter to their quality of life (SurveyMonkey, March 2026), while 37% of Gen Z say they spend impulsively to cope with money stress. (Credit Karma, October 2024) Paying extra for a better future is competing with getting through the week, and losing.
Brands are going quiet to avoid a political fight, not because demand collapsed. US state legislatures saw 106 anti-ESG bills in the 2025 session, 11 of which passed. (Pleiades Strategy, July 2025) Thomas Lyon, who coined 'brownwashing', puts the retreat down to political pressure on specific firms rather than any shift in what shoppers or investors want. The scrutiny reaches the biggest names: sixteen state attorneys general publicly challenged Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon over their renewable energy claims. (West Virginia Attorney General's Office, September 2025)
The language is being cut harder than the budgets. Only 6% of S&P 100 companies now put 'ESG' in their sustainability report titles, down from 40% in 2023. (PR Newswire, April 2025) Yet a study of 75 global firms found 85% had kept or grown their sustainability programmes, with just 16% saying so out loud. (Harvard Business Review, September 2025) MHP Group's Ben Carr sees the same gap with clients who are still investing while scrubbing 'green' and 'eco-friendly' from their materials (ESG Dive, January 2026), and Walmart has conceded it will miss its 2025 and 2030 targets while continuing to report on renewables and holding to a 2040 zero-emissions goal. (ESG Dive, September 2025)
Two very different kinds of quiet look identical from outside. Some companies really have stepped back. Nike cut around 30% of its sustainability workforce after missing its emissions goals (ProPublica, July 2024), Coca-Cola removed the page hosting its original 2030 recycled-content pledge (The Coca-Cola Company, December 2024), and Starbucks, Apple and Unilever let senior sustainability roles lapse. (Ethos, June 2026) Others are simply making a cost calculation: as buyers grow cynical about green claims, firms that scale back can save more than they lose in sales. (Marketing Science, February 2025) Either way, the public can't tell the committed from the retreating, and Creatives for Climate and B Lab warn that the gap tends to be filled by louder, less reliable voices. (GreenSHOUTING Guide, March 2026)
What this means for brands
Reactivate, don't persuade. The goal isn't dead, it's dormant, so wake it at the shelf. The same plant-based basket sold to 20% of Americans as 'vegan' and 44% as 'healthy and sustainable'. (Journal of Environmental Psychology, February 2024) Chipotle sells integrity (Chipotle, May 2025); Athletic Brewing sells flavour. (Fast Company, March 2025) The planet comes along for the ride.
Receipts beat adjectives. Big promises with nothing underneath get expensive: Tyson Foods is barred from its net-zero claims for five years (Environmental Working Group, November 2025), and JBS USA paid $1.1 million. (New York Attorney General, November 2025) Drop the badge, keep the numbers, like JPMorgan Chase. (ESG Today, January 2025)
Quiet in public, loud in the building. Around 70% of Gen Z and millennial workers weigh a company's environmental record when choosing an employer. (Deloitte, May 2025) Tell the story to the people still listening before someone less credible tells it for you. In Lyon's words, the quiet is "an opportunity for genuine green firms that have their own houses in order to differentiate themselves from the crowd."
Canvas8 is a behavioural insights agency whose reports are used by brands and agencies worldwide. This page highlights key findings from the report; the full version is available to Canvas8 members.
Alice Sweitzer
