Now is the right time to be urging marketers to be bolder and braver in their decisions on whether to include sustainable behaviours and environmental messaging in their advertising. The ad industry is one that prides itself on shaping culture, and at a time when the world is facing an enormous energy crisis, with energy firms seeing surges in demand for greener energy choices, the role advertising plays in promoting more sustainable choices still feels stubbornly small. Here’s where decision intelligence plays a vital role in supporting marketers.
Our latest update to the Kantar Sustainable Behaviours Ad Tracker, created in partnership with AdNetZero shows that just 4.5% of ads globally feature any form of sustainable behaviour, a figure that has consistently declined since we first reported results in early 2025. After more than a year of tracking nearly 16,000 ads worldwide, we are seeing that progress is possible, but it is far from inevitable.
Buried within this data is a more optimistic story; advertisers don’t need to choose between being responsible and advertisingeffectiveness of their advertisingBrands using this intelligence to support clearer, braver and more explicit sustainability messaging in their ads canreap the rewards of both.
The presence of sustainability in ads varies by type, sector and market
Sustainable transport and travel choices remain the most prevalent, accounting for 2.4% of all ads, while sustainable food and diet, product purchasing and home or energy lag significantly behind.
This imbalance is mirrored by industry. Automotive advertising continues to lead the way, with nearly a third of ads showcasing sustainable transport choices. Leisure and health‑related food categories follow at a distance, while many everyday categories, including cereals, gambling, even personal care, show little to no presence of sustainable behaviours.
The variation by market is just as stark. Belgium and Norway now join South Korea at the top of the table, with over one in ten ads featuring sustainable behaviours, while a growing number of newly tracked markets, Algeria, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, currently show none. This divergence suggests that sustainable behaviours and messaging in advertising are not constrained by consumer readiness, but by marketers’ choices, and perhaps their reticence. The US market is now sadly down to 3.8% of ads showing sustainable behaviours. This was at 5.3% when we first reported market-level data in June 2025.
Effectiveness is not the trade-off many fear
One of the most persistent myths holding advertisers back is the belief that including sustainable behaviours or sustainability messaging comes at the expense of effectiveness. The data tells a very different story.
Ads that demonstrate sustainable behaviours perform just as well on overall short and long-term brand measures as those that do not. However, they additionally show evidence of stronger ad distinctiveness and higher emotional engagement, helping them to stand out in crowded media environments. In other words, there is no creative effectiveness penalty to pay. If anything, sustainable behaviours can be a creative benefit, particularly in categories where differentiation is increasingly hard won.
Sustainable behaviours can be woven naturally into advertising without the brand making an explicit environmental claim. This charming Google Gemini ad shown during the US Super Bowl is a fine example: the dream yard, designed with the help of Gemini, prominently features home-grown vegetables, but this point is not central to the brand’s narrative.
Behaviour alone isn’t always enough
Kantar data also reveals a notable hesitation to go beyond implicit messaging. Among all ads featuring sustainability, the majority (55%) only do so through behaviours seen in the ad. Less, (31%) just feature an explicit environmental message, and only 14% of ads pair sustainable behaviours AND explicit messaging.
A great example is this Effie award winning McDonalds campaign from Sweden which both encourages and demonstrates dealing responsibly with take-away rubbish (trash), a campaign they evolved by bravely also rewarding the correct disposal of rubbish by their competitor brands.
This matters, because when advertisers do combine the two, the gains are significant. Ads that feature sustainable behaviours and an explicit environmental message are markedly more distinctive, and more likely to help grow your brand than ads that feature neither, or that rely on implication alone. Including subtle, less imposing sustainable behaviours may feel safer, but being more explicit in your messaging can prove more effective .
An explicit environmental message alone, can help with a more immediate sales response, potentially due to the story staying focused on the claim or benefit.
| Does the ad feature: | Sustainable behaviours only | Sustainable behaviours AND environmental messaging | Environmental message only |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long term - brand equity | +3 | +16 | +17 |
| Short term - sales likelihood | 0 | +3 | +13 |
| Ad distinctiveness | +5 | +23 | +12 |
| Emotional engagement | +6 | +18 | +6 |
Percentile difference from ads featuring neither
Why boldness pays off
The strongest results in the dataset come from ads that are willing to be clear about what they stand for. Explicit environmental messages, particularly when grounded in real, observable behaviours, help focus the story, sharpen the benefit and make the message easier to remember.
This is not about green claims for their own sake. It is about clarity. Audiences respond when a clear environmental rationale that fits authentically with your brand is complemented by sustainability being treated as a natural lived choice, whether that is how we travel, eat, buy or heat.
This neat example from An Post in Ireland shows that sustainable behaviours can be integrated naturally into brand storytelling, without overwhelming the core brand proposition. The ad highlights how they make it easy for people to sell pre-loved clothes, explicitly delivering environmental messaging and simultaneously showcasing their own delivery services.
Every brief counts
These latest findings demonstrate that advertising has not yet normalised sustainable choices. There are many pressing reasons to start now.
Leading brands, categories and markets show that change is possible. The absence of an effectiveness penalty removes one of the last excuses for inaction. And the uplift seen when advertisers decide to be bold suggests that the biggest gains lie not in doing less, but in doing sustainability better.
If sustainable behaviours are to become the norm rather than the exception, they need to appear in more briefs, more categories and more markets. Not as a bolt‑on, but as a creative starting point. Brands which also explicitly tackle environmental messaging will benefit further. Because when it comes to sustainability, the data is clear: what advertising chooses to show matters, and how clearly it chooses to say it matters even more.
For more detailed information, the latest Kantar Sustainable Behaviours Ad Tracker report is available online as a free download.
Download the Sustainable Behaviours Ad Tracker