Key Takeaways
- Soccer fans are ahead on sustainable consumption: World Cup soccer fans are more likely than the general public to choose reusable packaging, buy organic products, and purchase from responsible brands.
- The gap is especially pronounced in the USA: Soccer fans in the USA dramatically over-index on these behaviors, with nearly double the share saying they buy from responsible companies and significantly higher uptake of choosing reusable packaging and buying organic products compared to the national average.
- The World Cup is a high-impact moment to scale more sustainable choices: With a large, receptive audience already leaning into sustainable behaviors, brands have a unique opportunity to make more sustainable options visible, easy, and desirable at scale.
Why is the World Cup a unique moment to scale more sustainable consumer choices?
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaches and brands prepare to activate around one of the world’s most visible cultural moments, new GlobeScan data points to an important strategic opportunity. Soccer fans are not only highly-engaged audiences, but they are also more inclined than the general public to adopt sustainable shopping behaviors that align closely with the kinds of choices brands can influence at venues, in retail environments, and across fan experiences.
Globally, self-identified FIFA World Cup soccer fans report higher participation across the sustainable shopping behaviors shown in this analysis. Nearly half say they buy products in returnable, reusable, or refillable containers most or all of the time (47% vs 41% of the global average) and the same share say they often buy natural or organic products (47% vs 38%). Fans are also significantly more likely to say they try to buy from responsible brands or companies (46% vs 35%). Taken together, these results suggest that soccer fans are not simply an attentive audience for sustainability messages during the World Cup period, but they may already be more behaviorally receptive to more sustainable product and brand choices than the public overall.
The contrast is even more pronounced in the USA, where the World Cup will generate intense commercial and cultural attention. American soccer fans are almost twice as likely as the general public to say they try to buy from responsible companies (61% vs 32%), while also over-indexing strongly on other emerging sustainable consumption behaviors, including buying natural or organic products (55% vs 30%) and choosing reusable or refillable packaging (50% vs 33%). This suggests that World Cup activations need not treat sustainability as a peripheral communications layer, but for a meaningful subset of fans, greener choices may already resonate as part of how they want to shop and consume.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
For brands, the implication is not simply that soccer fans care more, but that the World Cup creates a rare convergence of attention, identity, and action in which more sustainable options may be more visible, more relevant, and more likely to be chosen. In practical terms, that creates room for brands, retailers, sponsors, and venue operators to move beyond messaging alone and instead make more sustainable choices easier, more attractive, and more normal during the fan journey itself, whether through refill and reuse formats, more responsible product assortments, or clearer signaling around responsible sourcing and brand practices.
More broadly, the findings highlight the role major sporting events can play in accelerating behavior change. The World Cup is not only a media platform, but also a social occasion in which norms are made more visible and shared. If brands use that moment well, soccer fans could become an influential audience for helping more sustainable consumption feel mainstream, aspirational, and part of the excitement of participation rather than a trade-off that sits outside the event experience.
How This Insight Was Generated: This analysis is based on a representative online survey of 31,960 people in the general public in July and August 2025. It compares 11,042 self-identified FIFA World Cup soccer fans (who love, watch games, and follow) with the global average on a range of sustainable shopping behaviors.
Survey Question: Now we would like you to answer a few questions about what you do in your everyday life. Please indicate how often you do each of the following. – I try to buy from brands/companies that I believe are environmentally and socially responsible. – I buy products with natural or organic ingredients or materials. – I buy products in returnable, reusable, or refillable containers.
Countries surveyed: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Türkiye, UK, USA, and Vietnam.
