What Prevents Consumers from

Adopting Sustainable Living Practices in 2026?

A strategic analysis of the barriers, the behavioural dynamics, and what forward-thinking organisations are doing about it.

Published 2026 | Berkins Consulting | Consumer Strategy & Sustainability Practice

61%

Cite Cost as #1 Barrier

Deloitte / Kantar, 2025

80%

Only 20% Trust Brand Claims

Blue Yonder Survey, 2025

42%

Say Products Hard to Find

Kantar, 2025

79%

Say AI is Critical to the Future

Bain & Co. ESG Survey, 2025

The Intention-Action Divide: Why Sustainability Remains Out of Reach for Most Consumers

Here is a paradox that should trouble every sustainability strategist, brand leader, and policymaker working today: most consumers care deeply about the environment, yet most are not living sustainably. Not because they lack values — but because the structures, systems, and marketplaces they navigate make it genuinely difficult to act on those values in any consistent, meaningful way.

This is the core challenge facing sustainable living in 2026. According to Bain & Company's ESG Consumer Lab Survey — one of the most comprehensive of its kind, covering over 14,000 people across eight countries — four out of five consumers remain engaged on environmental issues. Sustainable purchasing is rising. Eco-conscious attitudes are hardening. And yet the behaviours that define a genuinely sustainable lifestyle — in energy, food, transport, fashion, and home management — remain the exception rather than the norm.

The gap between what people say they want and what they actually do has a name in the academic literature: the attitude-behaviour gap. Understanding what drives it, and what can be done about it at scale is one of the most commercially and strategically important questions for businesses operating in 2026. This article examines the barriers from the ground up — the financial, structural, informational, psychological, and systemic forces that keep sustainable living out of reach — and explores how Berkins Consulting is helping organisations turn those barriers into strategic opportunities.

KEY CONTEXT

The shift in sustainability engagement is not about values — it is about access, trust, and infrastructure. Consumers who want to live more sustainably are being failed by systems that make it harder, not easier, to do so. Fixing that is not a consumer education problem. It is a business design problem.

01

The Financial Barrier: When 'Doing the Right Thing' Comes at a Premium

Cost Remains the Dominant Obstacle

No analysis of barriers to sustainable living is complete without spending considerable time on cost, because the data consistently and across every major survey return to cost as the defining obstacle. Deloitte's Sustainable Consumer research found that 61% of respondents cite the expense of sustainable products and services as their primary reason for not adopting a more sustainable lifestyle. Kantar confirms the same figure. The Blue Yonder 2025 consumer survey found that 54% of respondents cite higher costs as a barrier to sustainable purchasing, even as nearly half express a genuine willingness to pay a modest premium of 5–9.9% more for sustainable options.

There is an important nuance here that often gets lost in the headline numbers. Consumers are not uniformly unwilling to pay more for sustainability — they are unwilling to pay significantly more, especially amid sustained cost-of-living pressures that have made every household budget calculation more fraught. PwC's research found that consumers globally are willing to pay an average premium of 9.7% for sustainably produced goods — a meaningful number, but one that is quickly eroded when sustainable alternatives carry a 30–50% premium over conventional equivalents, which is common across categories from food to personal care to home energy.

The problem is also structural. Sustainable products often carry a genuine cost premium because they are manufactured in smaller volumes, use more expensive materials, or operate in supply chains without the economies of scale that conventional products benefit from. Until those economics change — through policy intervention, consumer scale, or manufacturing innovation — the cost gap will persist. And for lower-income households, that gap is not a trade-off to be managed. It is a hard wall.

Primary Barriers to Sustainable Living — Global Consumer Survey Data 2025–2026

Percentage of consumers citing each factor as a significant barrier (Multiple sources, 2025–2026)

Cost / Affordability

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61%

Lack of interest / awareness

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61%

Not enough information

█████████████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░

50%

Hard to find / accessibility

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42%

Unclear/misleading labels

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38%

Distrust of brand claims

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30%

Inconvenience / time cost

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28%

Feels pointless / no impact

█████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░

26%

Source: Deloitte Sustainable Consumer 2024, Kantar, Bain ESG Survey 2025, Blue Yonder 2025, GlobeScan 2025

The Hidden Costs Consumers Cannot Always See

The financial barrier extends beyond the point-of-sale price. Switching to sustainable energy, for instance, often requires upfront capital for solar panel installation, home insulation, or EV charging infrastructure that many households simply do not have — even if the long-term economics are favourable. Similarly, buying sustainably produced food or clothing can require access to specialist retailers, subscription services, or farmers' markets that are geographically and logistically unavailable to consumers in certain communities.

Mintel's 2025 UK Everyday Sustainability Consumer Report makes a crucial strategic point: for sustainable products to achieve mainstream appeal, they must either be affordable or demonstrably offer cost savings to the consumer. Brands that can position sustainability as a financial benefit — through durability, reduced waste, energy savings, or lower long-term costs — consistently outperform those that ask consumers to absorb an upfront premium on the basis of environmental values alone.