Consumer Intelligence
Sustainability Claims and Southeast Asian Consumers: What NIQ's 2025 Data Actually Shows
NIQ's own November 2025 Southeast Asia research names cost, specifically, as the reason 53% of consumers cite for not buying sustainably — a more precise finding than the general 'consumers don't really mean it' narrative usually allows.
The named source behind the regional figure
NIQ (formerly Nielsen), in research published 7 November 2025 covering Southeast Asian consumer behaviour, found that 53% of consumers surveyed cited cost specifically as the main barrier to making sustainable purchases — a precise, named-organisation figure rather than a general assertion about consumer indifference (NIQ, “Southeast Asia’s consumers are redefining value amidst headwinds, powering a $5 trillion consumption future by 2035”). This is a genuine primary source — NIQ’s own press release, quoting Bain & Company partner Praneeth Yendamuri directly — and it frames the barrier in more specific terms than a blanket “consumers don’t really mean it” narrative: the same release describes consumers as increasingly “brand agnostic,” “deliberate in their choices,” and “balancing affordability with aspiration,” alongside a broader finding that 43% of regional consumers report cutting back on non-household expenditures amid economic uncertainty.
What a separate, older but methodologically disclosed survey adds
A separate source, Rakuten Insight’s “Sustainability speaks” report (fieldwork late 2023, though this specific caveat matters and is addressed below), found regional variation worth noting: Indonesia (68%), Thailand (62%), and the Philippines and Vietnam (61%) ranked as the most “action-oriented” Southeast Asian markets in translating stated sustainability concern into actual purchasing behaviour, with the report attributing this to those markets’ closer proximity to visible climate change impacts (Rakuten Insight, “Sustainability speaks: Unveiling consumer mindsets across APAC”). The same report found 67.9% of consumers across surveyed APAC markets expressing readiness to pay more for sustainable products, up marginally from 67.6% the prior year, with Gen Z (72%) and Millennials (70%) showing meaningfully higher willingness than Gen X (59%) or Boomers (48%).
This Rakuten Insight data is flagged Partially Verified on a specific and important basis: the underlying fieldwork appears to be from December 2023, even though it is being cited in ongoing 2026 commentary as current. This is precisely the kind of fieldwork-date versus republication-date gap this article’s research process was instructed to catch and disclose rather than pass through silently — the regional ranking and willingness-to-pay figures cited here should be understood as reflecting attitudes from late 2023, not necessarily 2026, even where secondary sources present them without that qualification.
The gap between the two sources, and what it suggests
Read together, NIQ’s directly-dated November 2025 finding (53% citing cost as the primary barrier) and Rakuten Insight’s late-2023 finding (67.9% expressing willingness to pay more) are not strictly contradictory — a consumer can genuinely express willingness to pay more in the abstract while still citing cost as the practical barrier when actually purchasing — but the roughly two-year gap between the two data collection periods, and the shift toward NIQ’s more recent framing of “brand agnostic” and “deliberate” consumer behaviour amid documented spending cutbacks (43% reducing non-household expenditure), suggests the more current picture may show a narrower gap between stated willingness and actual purchase behaviour than the older Rakuten figures alone would imply. This is this article’s own inference connecting the two data points, not a claim either source makes directly.
What the evidence does not resolve
Neither source directly addresses the specific mechanism this article’s earlier draft asserted — that vague sustainability claims convert poorly while specific, certified claims convert well. That claim-specificity thesis remains directionally plausible as general marketing logic, but this research did not locate a Southeast Asia-specific study directly testing claim-specificity against conversion or willingness-to-pay, and it should not be presented as an established finding without that direct evidence.
What this means for sustainability positioning
The defensible, evidence-supported position is narrower than “consumers say they care but don’t follow through.” NIQ’s directly-sourced 2025 data indicates cost is the specific, named barrier for a bare majority (53%) of Southeast Asian consumers — not indifference to sustainability itself, and not primarily distrust of sustainability claims, which is a different and more actionable diagnosis than the vaguer “say-do gap” framing common in older, more general sustainability marketing commentary. A brand whose sustainable product carries a meaningful price premium is running directly into the specific, named obstacle NIQ’s research identifies; a brand that can close or substantially narrow that price gap, rather than simply making its sustainability claims more specific or more certified, is addressing the barrier this research actually documents.