Awareness of fast fashion's environmental toll doesn't stop the buying, RMIT study finds

New research from RMIT University has found that knowing ultra-fast fashion harms the environment does little to change buying habits, with price and convenience regularly winning out over sustainability concerns.

The study, published in the Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, lands as a Roy Morgan survey shows Temu and Shein picked up more than a combined one million extra Australian customers over the past year. Temu now counts 5 million Australian buyers; Shein has 2.9 million.

Co-author Associate Professor Carol Tan said the pattern wasn't simple impulse buying. Participants in the study weighed sustainability against price and convenience, then used budgets and planning to make the eventual purchase feel more acceptable.

"These shoppers weren't necessarily acting without thought," Tan said. "Some spent time building wish-lists, parking items in their carts and waiting for the right time to buy, even though they still experienced the eventual purchase as spontaneous."

Two habits explain the gap

Researchers Tan, Saniyat Islam and Finela Quiambao identified two patterns behind the disconnect between what shoppers know and what they do.

The first, "strategic spontaneity," describes shoppers preparing purchases in advance — building wish-lists, watching for discount notifications, waiting for payday — while still experiencing the purchase itself as a spur-of-the-moment decision.

"I add things to my cart and wait for payday or a discount notification," one participant told researchers.

Social media accelerated the process. "I'll be scrolling through TikTok and see someone styling a Shein haul," another participant said. "Ten minutes later, I've got the same three items in my cart."

The second pattern, "cognitive buffering," is how shoppers reasoned their way past what they already knew. Associate Professor Islam said awareness of environmental harm rarely changed behaviour on its own.

"Instead, some created personal rules or limits that helped them feel more comfortable going ahead with a purchase," Islam said.

One participant described setting that concern aside deliberately: "I know it's bad for the planet, but when I'm on a budget and need an outfit for Saturday, I just block that out."

What might actually shift behaviour

Tan said the findings point to a limit on awareness campaigns alone. "Many participants already understood the environmental concerns, but affordability, convenience and the desire for something new could still take priority," she said.

The researchers suggested sustainability messaging could work better if it spoke to the same priorities driving the purchases in the first place — cost and value. Showing a garment's cost per wear, for instance, could let shoppers compare a cheaper item likely worn a handful of times against a more durable one.

The study is based on interviews with 20 Australian millennials and was designed to explore the reasoning behind these purchases, not to measure how widespread the behaviour is across the population.