If consumers care about sustainability, why are sustainable choices still hard?

Shopping in the supermarket, you reach for a spaghetti box but next to your usual choice is a product you haven’t seen before. Priced at €0.8 more, it carries an organic label, promising responsible sourcing and recycled packaging. You care about making more sustainable choices, so which box do you choose?

This everyday dilemma captures a broader challenge coming to the fore as we approach World Consumer Rights Day 2026. Awareness of sustainability has never been higher and claims around sustainability credentials in goods are widespread. So, if consumers are concerned about sustainability, why do sustainable choices remain the exception rather than the norm?

In recent years, sustainability claims, which tend to help consumers make better informed choices, have expanded. In Europe, from 2005 to 2020, the share of new consumer products claiming to possess a sustainable food ethos rose from 5% to nearly 50%. Surveys indicate that up to 80% of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainably sourced products.

Yet, conventional products still dominate market share and purchasing decisions. This could be framed as consumer inconsistency or irrationality. In reality, it reflects how markets are structured and how decisions are shaped long before a product reaches a consumer's shelf.

Behavioural economics research describes this phenomenon as the “intention-action gap”: a cognitive misalignment between stated values and observed behaviour. It is not primarily a failure of personal commitment but the predictable outcome of price signals, convenience, social norms and perceived risk.

The pasta's price premium is visible, feels immediate and concrete. The health, social and environmental benefits, such as avoided emissions or safeguarded soil health, seem distant and abstract, making them harder to quantify.

Loss aversion helps explain this dynamic: small immediate losses weigh more heavily than future gains. As a result, the higher upfront price exerts a disproportionate influence.

Supermarket decisions are automatic and habitual. Switching from a familiar brand to a labelled-sustainable alternative introduces effort and friction: comparing ingredient labels, interpreting sustainability claims, assessing their credibility, scanning QR codes and visiting different sections of a store.

Research shows that behaviour is sensitive to small design changes. In the United Kingdom, a study found that placing plant-based options in the meat aisle increased their sales by an average of 23%.

On the pasta shelf, placement, labelling clarity and visibility all shape the outcome of the purchase before consumers consciously reflect on their decisions.

Consumers are also influenced by what appears as the norm. If most shoppers choose conventional products, the sustainable alternative can seem experimental and niche. Unconsciously, choosing them may feel like extra effort or a deviation from the norm.

These behavioural patterns are predictable. But they do not operate in isolation. They are shaped by the broader market environment in which choices are made.

Beyond individual behaviour, structural market signals strongly influence outcomes.

Factors such as greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystem degradation and labour conditions are often not reflected in product prices. When these externalities remain unpriced, less sustainable goods appear artificially affordable. Products internalizing higher standards carry visible price premiums.

The conventional brand benefits from scale, prominent shelf placement and promotional pricing. It is positioned as the default. The sustainable option is present but not structurally advantaged.

In this context, choosing the organic pasta is not just a personal decision. It means acting against embedded price signals and default settings that favour the conventional product. The question is not only how consumers behave but how markets shape the options placed in front of them.

Now, imagine that further doubt arises about the reliability of the organic pasta’s label, the veracity of its sustainability claims and the comparability of standards.

Behavioural research shows that uncertainty pushes people toward the familiar. If sustainability claims lack credibility, action stalls. Consumers will not consistently choose sustainable products if they question their safety, quality or credibility.

This is where the World Consumer Rights Day 2026 and its theme, Safe Products, Confident Consumers, becomes central. Strong consumer protection frameworks, credible standards and effective enforcement are essential to enable sustainable consumption at scale.

Without trust, the sustainable pasta remains a risky choice. With trust, confidence reduces hesitation.

Rising awareness alone will not shift markets if sustainable choices remain more expensive, less visible and more effortful. Closing the intention-action gap requires redesigning the environments in which decisions are made.

This means moving beyond nudging individuals and toward aligning economic signals, regulation and infrastructure.

Clear, harmonized labelling reduces confusion. Improved defaults can normalize sustainable options. Progressive product standards can gradually phase out the most unsustainable products, so consumers are not repeatedly asked to make complex trade-offs.

Evidence shows that redesign works. In Germany, when renewable electricity became the default under an opt-out system, participation reached 69.1%, compared to 7.2% under opt-in.

Integrating environmental costs into pricing, reforming harmful subsidies and reducing green premiums can correct distorted signals. Policy tools such as London’s congestion charge demonstrate how adjusting cost structures can shift behaviour while financing sustainable alternatives.

The objective is not to remove choice but to ensure that prices and signals reflect real costs and enable consumers to act in line with their values.

Sustainable consumption does not scale through awareness alone. Closing the intention-behaviour gap requires alignment across economic incentives and consumer protection frameworks.

It will be fully enabled when public and private actors redesign systems so that the sustainable choice becomes the easy, visible and affordable default, not the harder alternative i.e. the natural choice.

Making the sustainable choice the natural choice is not about shifting responsibility onto consumers. It is about redesigning the rules of the game. When standards are credible, incentives aligned and defaults rebalanced, markets can work with, rather than against, consumer intentions.

World Consumer Rights Day 2026 is a reminder that confidence of consumers is not built with information alone but by systems that make trust rational and sustainable choices realistic.