Gen Z: Pioneering Sustainable Fashion Consumption in the Digital Era

Companies and consumers’ emphasis on sustainability and its practices has been on the rise in recent decades following an increased awareness of various environmental issues. This is especially true for fashion companies, as they are part of one of the most impacting industries in the world in terms of emissions, waste, and overconsumption. It seems, however, that consumer demand is not following the important shift towards sustainability. This disparity is particularly and surprisingly notable among Gen Z fashion consumers, who paradoxically represent a demographic known for its concern about environmental issues and social responsibility. Among these younger generations, social media advertising has emerged as a powerful tool in shaping consumer behaviour, although the role of its multiple types of promotion in driving sustainable fashion attitudes and consumption remains unexplored. By using semi-structured interviews as its qualitative collection method, this study aims to tackle this literature gap by investigating the impact of social media promotional content on bridging the sustainable attitude-behaviour gap among Gen Z fashion consumers. That is the divergence between their perception/attitudes towards sustainable fashion consumption, and their actual behaviours towards it. By shedding light on the effectiveness of the most prominent types of social media promotional content types, namely influencer branded content, entertainment-based promotional content and targeted advertising, in reducing the sustainable fashion gap among Gen Z consumers, this research provides valuable insights for both academia and the industry. In fact, the findings are expected to uncover key points of improvement that would help practitioners and researchers to go towards more effective sustainable consumption promotional communication, hopefully contributing to the growth of sustainable fashion consumption among gen z consumers.