Global Trust Report 2026
Worrisome for the Environment?
Solving global environmental problems requires something that cannot be manufactured in a laboratory or legislated into existence: trust. Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, food security, and other environmental challenges cross national, cultural, political, and economic boundaries, making cooperation among people with different interests and perspectives essential.
Yet the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer suggests that this social foundation is weakening. Edelman describes a shift from polarization and grievance toward what it calls “insularity”—a reluctance to trust people whose values, information sources, approaches to societal problems, or cultural backgrounds differ from one’s own.
The findings come from Edelman Trust Institute's 26th annual survey, based on online interviews with 33,938 people in 28 countries, conducted from October 25 through November 16, 2025. The data are designed to be representative of the general population by age, gender, and region within each country.
Key Data
Globally, 70% of respondents are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who differs from them in core values, accepted facts and information sources, approaches to societal problems, or cultural background and lifestyle. A majority exhibited this mindset in 25 of the 28 countries surveyed.
Japan had the highest reported level, at 90%, followed by Germany at 81%. The rate was 76% in the UK, 73% in Canada, and 70% in the US.
Across the 28 countries, just 32% said the next generation would be better off than people are today—a 4-percentage-point decline from 2025. The report found double-digit declines in optimism in Singapore, Thailand, India, and China.
Supplemental data presented in the report found 54% of low-income respondents expected people like themselves to be left behind by generative AI rather than benefit from it, compared with 44% of middle-income and 31% of high-income respondents. In the US, the respective figures were 65%, 50%, and 47%.
Globally, 76% considered it at least a moderate problem that people with different beliefs, experiences, values, or ideas distrust each other so deeply that they actively try to make things worse for one another.
Among people with open mindsets, trust in institutions headed by people different from themselves ranged from 65% to 71%. Among those with insular mindsets, it fell to 36% to 43%.
Only 53% of respondents worldwide said they trusted government to do what is right, and government was classified as distrusted in 14 of the 28 countries measured.
Global trust in media stood at 54%, despite rising 2 percentage points from 2025. Media remained distrusted in 13 of the 28 countries surveyed.
Trust in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) averaged 58%, unchanged from the previous year. NGOs reached Edelman's “trusted” threshold in only 12 of 28 countries.
Edelman's Trust Index—the average percentage level of trust in business, government, media, and NGOs—stood at 57% globally, but developing countries averaged 66%, compared with just 49% in developed countries.
Why It Matters
Taken together, the findings suggest that while societies retreat into familiar circles, large majorities recognize that deep distrust itself has become a problem. Problems that ignore borders ultimately require people and institutions to cooperate despite differences.
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