Sustainability and climate change awareness has been topping the news and corporate agenda in recent years, nudged by protests, (in many instances by the younger generations, local climate crises and a growing awareness of the human impact on the world.

We saw a similar period of raised consciousness appear after Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth 2006 documentary when the polar bear on a melting ice cap emerged as the icon for climate change. However, the financial crisis and global recession that followed in 2008 hindered any further progress. We saw this decline in interest as customer searches around sustainability on gettyimages.com receded over the next 10 years and the polar bear did not trend again until 2019 when usage grew twice fold.

So, it's with interest that we have been tracking consumer concern for the environment and messaging around sustainability during the COVID-19 crisis, to monitor whether the same pattern would be recreated this time around. Through our Visual GPS research, we polled global consumers before and during COVID-19 to investigate whether attitudes have changed.

And guess what? Sustainability and the climate are just as important to people now as they were before the COVID-19 crisis.

Sustainability is here to stay

At the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, how we treat the planet and each other were key forces driving consumer behaviour, with nearly all (92%) consumers surveyed across the world saying they were deeply concerned about at least one environmental concern. A second round of research we have just completed tells us that despite COVID-19 and the impact of lockdowns on the economies around the world, people's views on sustainability and climate issues have changed very little. In fact, eight out of 10 of all consumers (81%) expect businesses to be environmentally aware in all their advertising and communications.

Interestingly, this expectation is higher amongst older consumers (84%), with seniors more likely than any other age group to buy only from brands that make an effort to be eco-friendly. And, as this age group also represents nearly half the market for consumer goods, 49% according to Nielsen, their expectation will translate visually to the aspirational desire for a better future through growing older and living a sustainable lifestyle.

The dominant visual narratives in the media about climate change in recent years have been of wildfires, pollution and plastic waste. Consumers are therefore predominantly concerned about the same issues and are twice as likely to be drawn to visuals that show how their own actions impact the natural world.

So, it looks like sustainability is here to stay.

Moving the visual narrative around sustainability forward

The good news is our customers, brands and businesses in almost every country in the world, appear to agree. Customer searches for imagery illustrating 'Sustainability' have increased by 142% since last year and searches for 'sustainable living', up by 201%, are trending against current search behaviour. In mainstream advertising campaigns, brands have shifted to home-based living and working ideals, environmentally friendly transportation e.g. electric cars and bicycles and people enjoying the outdoor environment, which took on a new meaning during lockdown seeing a 766% increase in related searches.

The challenge I throw open to the advertising industry then is how to move the visual narrative around sustainability forward. Visual icons for sustainability have played an important role, giving people shorthand for understanding a sustainability issue when they see it but we now need to move beyond them.

At Getty Images, we're proud to be part of the solution. We've teamed up with Climate Visuals, the world’s only evidence-backed programme for climate change photography, to present Visualising Sustainability Guidelines. The guidelines give brands and businesses practical recommendations on how to find and use fresh and relevant visual content to communicate their commitment to sustainability and inspire their audiences to action.

In these strange times we find ourselves in, one thing we can take heart from is that sustainability is here to stay. Consumers care about it so let’s show them how they can be part of the solution.