Marketers promoting circular luxury products should discard words like ‘recycled’, ‘sustainable’ and even ‘eco-friendly’, say QUT researchers who found consumers prefer a combination of ‘sustainable’ and ‘progress-focused’ action words when considering sustainable luxury buys.

Ms Joenpolvi said similar results were found in posts on the luxury cars – those that included progress-focused language about sustainability achieved well above the average shares on Facebook for each brand.

“The posts that mentioned their luxury cars had ‘sustainable materials’, ‘eco-friendly materials’ or were fighting ‘plastic pollution’ achieve dismal shares, such as just 6 per cent of the average shares for that brand.