On average, men take only 6 minutes to buy a pair of jeans. They go to the store, grab the jeans they want, and make the purchase.

Women, on the other hand, are much more deliberate. In fact, women will spend on average three hours and 26 minutes buying a pair of jeans. Why? Because women want the perfect fit; they want the right style; they want to make sure the jeans “work” with other outfits. Women will consult their friends by phone; strangers in the dressing room; and even online product reviews they can Google before they make the purchase. It is a long deliberative process focused on solving not just the need to buy a pair of jeans, but a variety of wardrobe issues the buyer faces.

What does this have to do with sustainability? Women make 85% of consumer purchases in the marketplace, yet their purchases of green products still lag behind the conventional products they buy. To encourage women to shift more spending to greener goods, marketers need to understand how deliberative women are and use those deliberations to break down barriers to behavior change. Women won’t buy green in spite of the way it’s marketed; they’ll buy because of the marketing… as long as the marketing resonates with the way women shop.