Sustainability Search Traffic Grew 97% in 12 Months
by Sustainability Tracker 27/08/2026
News
by Sustainability Tracker 27/08/2026
News
This article was contributed by Sustainability Tracker.
The way people search for brand sustainability information has changed faster in the past 12 months than in our entire history before it. We’ve pulled together a year of our own search and platform data into our 2026 Visibility Report, drawing on Google Search Console and internal analytics from August 2025 to August 2026, to map what’s driving that shift and what it means for the brands on our platform.
The headline figures: Sustainability Tracker‘s search visibility in Google Organic Search grew 97% year-on-year, reaching 6.28 million impressions. Our average sitewide ranking lifted 13 positions. By August 2026, we were being surfaced or cited in AI-generated answers an average of 19,200 times a day.
Google AI Overviews launched in August 2025. In the six months that followed, our data shows a step change rather than a gradual climb: our average search rankings rose 13 positions and our weekly search visibility grew 97%, with both metrics holding the gain rather than reverting.
We think this matters because of what it tells us about how consumers now research a brand’s sustainability credentials. A growing share of that research happens inside an AI-generated summary, before a person clicks anywhere. When that summary needs a source to cite, it draws on data that’s structured, evidenced and verifiable, which is a large part of why we’re seeing more of these citations land on us.
Two behavioural findings stood out in our data:
Real queries we answered over the period include “is white fox ethical?”, “red bull environmental impact” and “is glassons fast fashion?”. This is intent-driven research: people who already have a brand in mind and want evidence before they buy, not just general curiosity about sustainability as a topic.
Fashion and apparel accounted for 39.9% of all sustainability-related search traffic on our platform, more than the next two categories (food and drink, and beauty and personal care) combined. Fashion brands make up 26.3% of the brands listed with us, so the category is over-indexing on search demand by a factor of 1.5.
We appeared in search results across 149 countries over the reporting period. The US delivers our largest total audience; Australia shows the strongest search intent of any market we track; the UK shows strong engagement alongside a growing SEO ranking.
If your own sustainability page shows flat or declining traffic, our data suggests that’s rarely a sign your customers have stopped asking the question. More often, the search and the answer are both happening somewhere else, on a platform built to be cited by AI systems and trusted by researchers.
Our Founder and CEO Kiarne Treacy says the shift reflects a broader change in how trust gets built online: “People are searching for brands, by name, over and over. They’re looking for evidence a brand is genuinely trying to do better, and when they find it, that brand earns the kind of trust that makes it easy to choose again.”
This report draws on two data sources: Google Search Console (organic search performance, rankings and query-level detail) and our internal platform data via Google Analytics (page-level engagement, session activity, category and brand-page visits). The reporting period covers August 2025 to August 2026. Our scope is organic Google search and AI chatbot citation behaviour; paid search, other search engines and social platforms sit outside it. Where a chart uses a different date window for methodological clarity, we’ve noted that directly on the chart.
Read our full 2026 Visibility Report to see the complete dataset, including monthly trend charts and category-by-category breakdowns.
How much did our sustainability search visibility grow in 2026?
Our search visibility grew 97% year-on-year, reaching 6.28 million impressions in Google Organic Search, with our average rankings lifting 13 positions.
What role do AI Overviews play in sustainability search?
Google AI Overviews launched in August 2025 and now generate the first answer many consumers see when researching a brand’s sustainability credentials, often citing platforms like ours with structured, verifiable data before a person clicks through to any website.
Which age group searches for sustainability information most?
Under-35s account for 62.2% of our engagement, a generation projected to control $12 trillion in global spending by 2030.
Which product category has the highest sustainability search demand?
Fashion and apparel drives 39.9% of all sustainability-related search traffic on our platform, more than food and drink and beauty and personal care combined.