Earth Month (commonly known as “April”) is often celebrated with sustainability pledges and green campaigns from both consumers and brands. More often than not these positive intentions don’t translate into anything of substance. This discrepancy between what we intend to do vs. what we actually do is what we like to call here at grounded, the “Intention-Action Gap”.

In the context of sustainability, the intention-action gap (also called the say-do gap or value-action gap) is often the biggest barrier to meaningful action and scalable impact. 

In this article, we’ll answer, ‘What is the intention-action gap?” and “How to close the intention-action gap?”. We’ll also examine why closing the intention-action gap especially matters during Earth Month, discuss the limits of seasonal green marketing, explore insights from behavioral science on nudging sustainable behavior, and highlight best-in-class case studies of brands that are successfully closing the gap between sustainable intent and actionable impact.