The global consumption trend is based on a waste-making culture that contributes to the excessive use of energy and resources. Governmental organisations are responsible for intervening in the system and reversing this trend. There is a need for interaction between the actors in the system to reject the waste-making culture and integrate sustainable practices into society. To this end, tool choice for promoting sustainable practice to facilitate this interaction is crucial in distributing knowledge and information efficiently. Considering the digitisation process that escalated with the pandemic, social media has become even more of an essential tool in ensuring this social interaction between individuals and organisations. This study aims to reveal sustainability narratives related to how sustainable practices in local culture can inform global consumption—to map out the value flow between individuals, the design process and related actors within the framework of these narratives and to examine how design can play a role in facilitating sustainable practices on a global scale. To this effect, this research examines the Zero Waste Life series on YouTube by NHK World—the international service of Japan’s public media organisation NHK. The opening sentence in each video refers to Japanese traditions emphasising the practice of product care and repair to extend product life and strengthen the user–product relationship. Focusing on cultural practice, it is aimed to reveal the possible contribution of sustainability narratives ingrained in Japanese culture for sustainable design, production and consumption on a global level. Through narrative analysis, the data is evaluated by framing the key actors of sustainable practice and examining their social, economic and environmental impact. The study concludes that local—Japanese—culture provides a valuable source of knowledge for developing new design strategies to promote sustainable practice. Governmental interventions that strive to raise sustainability awareness through introducing indigenous practices are not only beneficial for encouraging sustainable behaviours in society but also provide insights for designers to explore more sustainable ways of production that can inform sustainable consumption globally.