Conscious Consumers Are Rewriting Fashion’s Rules 

Compelling new research from Eco Age reveals a seismic shift in consumer behaviour that should send tremors through every boardroom in the fashion industry.  

For years, the fashion industry operated on a convenient fiction: that sustainability was a nice-to-have, a marketing tool to be deployed when convenient.  

Brands churned out glossy campaigns featuring recycled polyester collections whilst quietly expanding fast fashion empires built on exploitation and waste. Greenwashing wasn’t just tolerated – it was standard practice. 

That era is over. 

An overwhelming 90% of respondents say they would boycott a company associated with unfair treatment of workers or environmentally damaging practices. Even more telling, 81% now actively research a brand’s behaviour before making a purchase – a dramatic increase from a decade ago.  

These aren’t casual shoppers swayed by the latest trend. These are conscious consumers demanding proof, not promises. 

John Higginson, CEO of Eco Age said: “The data confirms what we are seeing across the industry: people want facts, not fluff.”  

 “The era of performative sustainability is finished. Consumers see through vague promises and glossy campaigns. They want credible data, and proof that change is real.”  

The Eco Age poll results tell a story of fundamental change. When asked what matters most when buying fashion, 28% of our readers cited ethical production—more than double the 13% who prioritised cost.  

In an industry that has long assumed price trumps principles, this represents a profound recalibration of values. Consumers are willing to sacrifice cash for answers, and they’re doing their homework with the diligence of investigative journalists. 

This isn’t performative virtue signalling. It’s a reflection of lived reality.  

Marwa Zamaray, Partner and Executive Director at Eco Age, said, “This isn’t a conversation about values anymore. It’s operational. If a brand cannot explain how its products are made, from start to finish, it will not retain the trust of its customers.”  

 People have watched the climate crisis intensify. They’ve seen the documentaries exposing sweatshop conditions. They’ve read the reports on textile waste choking landfills and microplastics polluting oceans. They know that fashion is one of the world’s most polluting industries, and they’re no longer willing to look the other way whilst brands peddle fairy tales about “conscious collections” that represent a fraction of a per cent of their output. 

The rise of circular fashion underscores this transformation. Over half of respondents (54%) say they now buy second-hand or repaired clothing far more often than they did ten years ago.  

Durability has become the new luxury, with the same percentage valuing garments that last over those that follow fleeting trends. The cult of newness that fuelled fast fashion’s explosive growth is giving way to a more mature relationship with clothing, one that values longevity, craftsmanship, and responsible production. 

Crucially, regulators are finally catching up with consumer sentiment. The recent fines imposed on Shein by France and Italy for greenwashing, misleading discounts, and data privacy violations signal that the cost of deception is rising sharply.  

But it’s not just fast fashion giants in the crosshairs. Luxury houses once assumed to be above reproach are facing unprecedented scrutiny. A Valentino unit was placed under court administration for failing to prevent subcontractor exploitation. Dior and Armani have faced similar oversight. Even Loro Piana’s supply chain has been questioned. The message is clear: no brand is too prestigious to escape accountability for conditions in its production networks. 

“These fines mark the start of a new enforcement era,” said Higginson. “For years, Eco Age has argued that sustainability must be proven, not proclaimed. Regulators are now echoing that call. Fast fashion can no longer treat greenwashing as the cost of doing business.”  

The technology to deliver genuine transparency already exists. DNA markers can trace fibres from farm to finished product. Digital platforms provide fibre-to-retail transparency across complex supply chains. The tools are available. What’s required now is the will to use them and the courage to be honest about what they reveal. 

Only 4% of consumers in our research said they would continue shopping with a brand involved in a scandal.  

That’s not a warning, it’s a death sentence for any company that fails to take this shift seriously. In an age where information travels instantly and reputations can be destroyed within minutes, credibility has become the most valuable currency in fashion. 

The conscious consumer isn’t a niche demographic or a passing trend. It’s the new mainstream. And the brands that thrive in this landscape won’t be those with the slickest sustainability reports or the most carefully curated Instagram feeds. They’ll be the ones that can demonstrate, with rigorous evidence, that their commitments are real. 

The age of accountability has arrived.  

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By Sarah Getty, Editorial Director of Eco Age 

Despite innovations, legislation, and initiatives, the fashion industry’s sustainability crisis isn’t improving. The reason? A stark disconnect between what consumers say they want and what they actually do.

In a recent presentation at Lisbon’s Textile Exchange conference, Kantar’s Jonathan Hall addressed this critical gap. “Our latest Kantar data shows that 85% of people globally want to make better choices,” Hall tells Eco Age. “Only 29% say they are actively changing their behaviours.”

The numbers are staggering. Between 2000 and 2015, fashion industry production doubled. Waste now stands at 92 million tonnes annually, projected to reach 148 million tonnes by 2030. Of today’s 92 million tonnes, only 20% is recycled – the rest goes to landfill, producing methane and poisoning earth and water with toxic chemicals.

This dramatic gap isn’t simply about consumer hypocrisy. “Now, some will say people are over-claiming and others will talk about virtue signalling – and sure, there’s some of that,” Hall says.

“But businesses have to recognise that people feel very concrete barriers to living the lives and making the purchases they want: typically, these are to do with quality, performance, design style, affordability, accessibility and convenience. Too often people feel they would have to compromise in order to choose a sustainable option.”

Consumers don’t believe sustainable clothing delivers on quality or that brands follow through on promises. They want to buy sustainably – they just don’t trust it’s worth the investment.

What’s strange isn’t the consumer position but the fashion industry’s lack of response. Sustainability isn’t just an ethical imperative – it’s an untapped economic opportunity.

“Taking a step back: on the one hand, the Value-Action Gap reflects the significant economic opportunity in helping people transform their consumption. On the other hand, it can feel intractable. But for brands that do act and communicate, sustainability can drive preference and brand growth,” Hall explains.

However, authenticity matters. “It needs to be relevant, connected to core category purchase drivers and authentic to the brand to deliver added value,” Hall notes. Greenwashing is a turnoff for consumers seeking genuine change.

The data supports this approach. “Evidence from Kantar’s Brand Sustainability report shows brands that drive positive perceptions on sustainability build brand equity, predisposing more people to their brand,” says Hall. “And shorter term, NYU Stern data shows evidence that products marketed as sustainable continue to grow faster than products not marketed as sustainable: they grew 2.3X faster and achieved a five-year compound annual growth of 12.4% vs 5.4% for their conventional counterparts.”

The foundation of consumer concern remains ideological rather than financial. “Although there has been a slight softening in concern for the environment as other concerns have increased, 67% of people still believe environmentalism is extremely important – because of the increasing frequency, intensity – and critically, proximity – of climate change impacts.

Two thirds of people now feel personally impacted by environmental issues from heatwaves and droughts to wildfires, floods and storms,” Hall says.

Sustainability is no longer abstract – it’s a lived reality. “Issues of climate, social impact and health & wellbeing are no longer distant or abstract concepts – it’s more personal,” Hall agrees. “The lived experience of poverty, inequality, pollution, extreme weather, and health, combined with growing expectations for brands to demonstrate how their actions directly improve individual and community wellbeing.”

Younger generations are leading the charge. “Kantar data shows that almost three-quarters of people around the world believe businesses have a responsibility to make society fairer, while two-thirds say it’s the responsibility of corporations to solve climate and environmental issues,” explains Hall.

The generational divide is striking. “While over half of people globally agree with the statement, ‘I consider myself an environmentalist,’ the figure rises to 57% among Gen Z and 64% among Millennials.” Hall adds: “The spike is significantly higher among younger Millennials, they are the trailblazers, pulling Gen Z along behind them.”

For these consumers, sustainability is identity. “For Gen Z and Millennial consumers, sustainability is a core part of their identity. Over half of both cohorts agree that ‘buying sustainable products or choosing environmental and socially conscious services shows others who I am and what I believe in.’

But social and environmental issues also shape who they are as employees. They look at a company’s sustainability strategy when considering where to work and want to work for organisations whose values align with their own.”

The fashion industry’s need for change isn’t news. What’s different now is that the power to make change happen is in the hands of those most driven to see it through. The question is whether the industry will seize the economic opportunity and meet the demand – or continue to let the value-action gap widen

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Karl Smith-Eloise is Features Director for Eco Age. He has worked as the EMEA Editorial Lead for HYPEBEAST and Editorial Director of FUTUREVVORLD, as a contributing editor to Highsnobiety, and for the fashion house FENDI. He now focuses exclusively on Earth-forward and ethical avenues in fashion, footwear and the broader culture.

When it comes to the mammoth task of making fashion sustainable, focus tends to fall on what’s new and what’s next. Newness, after all, is what brings in investment and what grabs attention.

However, the future of fashion may not come to us from the lab at all. It may be happening somewhere much less obvious: on the farm. 

From apples and bananas to hemp and wetland plants – farmed crops have become the forefront of positive change in the fashion industry.

With a new cohort of next-generation material outfits looking directly to nature for their inspiration and their innovation, Eco Age spoke with leading voices in the space to find out why.

“The future of biomaterials will likely be a mix of solutions: those rooted in what nature offers, and others grown in labs—nature-imitating innovations designed to scale,” says QWSTION and Bananatex founder Hannes Schoenegger. 

​​A leader in next-gen materials, Schoenegger’s operation is exactly what it sounds like: the creator of a textile made from banana, designed to replace harmful materials in fashion – particularly the ever-ubiquitous and hugely destructive polyester, which makes up 52% of all fibres used to make clothes. 

Having worked with the likes of Balenciaga, Stella McCartney and H&M, the Switzerland-based innovator has made huge strides in bringing alternative materials to the mainstream. And, while it’s impossible to discount the years of research, development and engineering that have gone into creating Bananatex, every piece of the material begins its life on the farm.

“We use the side stems of a banana species called musa textilis, which thrives in agroforestry systems and in some cases, even grows wild.”

Schoenegger adds, “We believe the only way forward is through truly holistic, 360-degree solutions that take all relevant factors into account: from how the fibres grow, to harvesting, processing, and the impact on water, energy, and CO₂ — as well as the social impact on every person involved throughout the supply chain.”

It’s a point of view which, in many ways, runs contrary to the worst excesses of not only the fashion industry but also the next-gen materials space: the impulse to silo, to hoard knowledge and to focus on intellectual property above community.

Benefitting local farmers in the Philippines, whose waste – having previously been a valueless product – becomes part of the Bananatex supply chain, the finished material is a product of give and take with nature and with the company’s partners on the ground. 

And, crucially, they’re far from alone in this way of thinking. 

“A fundamental advantage of a grown versus created material is the opportunity for grown materials to be renewable and regenerative,” explains Julian Ellis-Brown, Co-founder and CEO of Ponda, whose BioPuff insulation material contributes not only to the broad mission of reducing petroplastic fibres in fashion but also the regenerating the UK’s wetlands.

“Created materials require feedstocks,” he adds, “which might even be damaging in their creation, whereas taking a product back to its origins (the earth) enables us to make an impact where it’s needed.” 

“BioPuff is made from Typha, a semi-aqueous plant that is harvested annually. Typha needs to be grown in a wetland environment, which means it creates a demand for rewetting land. This has numerous benefits as wetlands are a cornerstone to regenerating our planet; they are the world’s best land-based carbon store, a key biodiversity ecosystem, and help build resilience against the effects of climate change.”

This focus on working in tandem with nature, rather than against it, sets Schoenegger and Ellis-Brown apart from many of their peers and against the status quo of a global fashion industry that produced 75 million tonnes of polyester in 2023 and which accounts for 10% of all carbon emissions. 

Yet, this way of thinking has historically come under fire by people who have chronically misunderstood the process. 

When a 2022 report revealed that – in converting wheat to biofuel – Europe burns the equivalent of 15 million loaves of bread every single day, people were understandably outraged. In a world where over 2 billion people experience food insecurity, the idea that fuel was being prioritised over food struck a raw nerve – even if it didn’t quite account for wider context. 

When it comes to farmed fashion materials, however, this accusation applies even less. 

“The future of biomaterials is waste,” says Sarah Angold, founder and CEO of acacia29, a UK-based innovator working with banana fibre from farms in India. “We should be using land to grow food to meet the needs of a growing population and using the byproducts from food systems to make textiles for clothes.

“We buy waste from low-income farmers, raising 200,000 out of poverty by 2030.”

Mikael Eydt, Co-Founder and CEO of Beyond Leather – a next-gen innovator from Denmark whose signature Leap material is crafted from brewing industry waste adds: “We’re not taking apples off anyone’s plate. We use the pulp left behind after juice and cider production, the part that would otherwise be discarded.”

“We are not competing with food production. It shows that sustainability doesn’t have to be a trade-off.”

Eydt has strong thoughts on the reality of waste: “It shouldn’t exist in the first place,” he declares, “It’s a design flaw. But we can fix that flaw by turning it into a high value material.”

Angold agrees: “By calling it waste, we give ourselves permission to waste it. Waste is simply an unused resource, and that’s what we should call it. It’s a systems failure” 

Still, some innovators are taking an even harder line on their natural approach. 

“I am a complete believer in the power of hemp to transform ecosystems, rebuild healthy soils, and restore biodiversity,” said Vanessa Barker. Founder and CEO of Papillon Bleu.

Barker’s company focuses on the fast-growing and super-low intervention plant as a potential solution to plastic-based fibres and even to cotton, which can require significant water to grow at scale. 

In creating fewer steps between plant and product, Barker is working toward reducing not only the fashion industry’s impact but also its opacity. “The advantage of growing a material versus creating one is that it gives us proof of provenance – the ability to trace the entire journey of a fabric back to seed.”

When all is said and done, however, change remains in the hands of the people who – in their eyes – stand to gain the least from any dramatic shift. The fashion industry’s reliance on polyester and other plastic-based materials is deeply ingrained in its business model. 

Perhaps, though, convincing them might be easier with the proof already in hand. Change isn’t some far-off possibility; it’s being cultivated and farmed even as we speak.