As international shoppers develop more and more acutely aware of the environmental toll of plastic packaging, many manufacturers have taken steps to scale back their use of plastic. But at the identical time, some manufacturers have adopted a a lot much less productive strategy to the anti-plastic motion: They’ve begun including superfluous paper packaging on high of plastic packaging with the intention to make their merchandise look extra environmentally pleasant with out really lowering plastic waste. The authors’ analysis demonstrates that this kind of overpackaging can certainly be efficient in boosting shoppers’ perceptions of sustainability, regardless of the indisputable fact that it’s demonstrably worse for the setting (to not point out dearer for producers). However, additionally they discovered that merely including a “minimal packaging” label to plastic packages can cut back the misperception that overpackaged merchandise are extra sustainable, enabling manufacturers to draw environmentally-conscious shoppers with out creating pointless paper waste.
The environmental risk posed by plastic packaging is well-known. The fashionable press and environmental teams alike have lengthy harassed the risks of plastic merchandise, from their affect on marine wildlife to their buildup in landfills. In distinction, paper is commonly seen as the sustainable, environmentally pleasant various — regardless of the actuality that greater than six million tons of paper packaging find yourself in U.S. landfills yearly.
Whether on account of real concern for the setting or the widespread vilification of plastic amongst shoppers, many corporations have invested closely in lowering their use of plastic packaging. Unilever, as an illustration, has pledged to halve its use of non-recycled plastic by 2025, whereas British grocery store chain Tesco launched a sustainable packaging initiative to scale back its annual packaging footprint by 1.5 billion items of plastic. And these efforts could certainly have a constructive environmental affect. But one other development that’s grown out of the anti-plastic motion is lots much less constructive: overpackaging. More and extra manufacturers have begun including superfluous paper packaging on high of plastic packaging with the intention to make their merchandise look extra environmentally pleasant, with out really lowering plastic waste.
For instance, skincare model Nivea sells plastic bottles of physique lotion packaged in cardboard containers, although an analogous product from the identical model is obtainable in simply the plastic bottle. Similarly, Sensodyne toothpaste is usually bought in plastic tubes that come inside extra paper packaging, though it will also be bought with out the paper containers. This type of overpackaging is in every single place, throughout product classes and geographic markets, regardless of being each dearer to fabricate and worse for the setting.
Unfortunately, there’s an excellent cause corporations are adopting this clearly problematic strategy: It works. Through a collection of eight research with greater than 4,000 contributors from throughout the U.S., the UK, and the Netherlands, we discovered that buyers will understand a product’s packaging as extra environmentally pleasant if it’s plastic with an extra layer of paper than if the product is visibly packaged in equivalent plastic packaging however with out the paper. In different phrases, merely slapping some paper on high of plastic packaging makes a product appear extra environmentally pleasant, even when you can nonetheless see that it’s wrapped in precisely the identical quantity of plastic. These perceptions in flip make shoppers each extra doubtless to purchase a product, and keen to pay extra for it. In one research, for instance, contributors had been keen to pay a median 15 cents extra for a granola bar in the identical plastic wrapper if we added extra paper packaging on high.
Interestingly, we additional discovered that these perceptions of sustainability weren’t simply decided by whether or not the product had paper packaging or not, however by the relative proportions of plastic versus paper packaging. In one research, we had shoppers think about shopping for cherry tomatoes that had been wrapped in paper and plastic. We saved the quantity of plastic the identical for all contributors, however different the quantity of paper — and we discovered that their perceptions of environmental friendliness elevated consistent with the quantity of paper used.
Part of what makes this overpackaging development significantly insidious is that it’s most salient for shoppers who’re most environmentally acutely aware. Interest in sustainability varies throughout political affiliations and international locations, however we discovered that individuals who reported participating in additional eco-friendly behaviors had been extra more likely to view overpackaged merchandise as environmentally pleasant. As a end result, the very shoppers who’re most occupied with pushing corporations to make sustainable selections are doubtless inadvertently encouraging the environmentally dangerous observe of overpackaging.
The excellent news is, overpackaging isn’t the solely solution to sign sustainability and entice environmentally acutely aware shoppers. In our research, we discovered that as an alternative of extra paper packaging, merely including a “minimal packaging” sticker to plastic packaging might right the misperception that overpackaged merchandise are extra sustainable. Especially for merchandise for which plastic is critical to make sure protected transportation and lengthen shelf life, this type of specific messaging may also help cut back shoppers’ biases towards the accountable use of plastic packaging (with out the want for pointless paper waste).
This variety of messaging is efficient as a result of alongside the frequent notion that “plastic is evil,” shoppers immediately are more and more conscious of the significance of minimal packaging as a aim in and of itself. Indeed, greater than half of respondents in a latest Deloitte survey mentioned they might contemplate a product sustainable if it used minimal or recyclable packaging, regardless of what that packaging was made of. Many manufacturers are already incorporating this development into their methods, explicitly signaling their dedication to accountable packaging by means of slogans comparable to Zara’s “Our boxes are made of boxes with a past,” a web based assertion from Kiehl’s that the majority of its merchandise don’t use “secondary packaging,” or 12 Tides’ “compostable packaging” label on its chip baggage.
Of course, these advertising and marketing efforts should be complemented by real funding into sustainability — and “minimal packaging” labels actually ought to solely be used if a model has really ensured that it’s utilizing the minimal attainable packaging, ideally underneath the supervision of a commerce group or regulatory physique that maintains clear, constant requirements. But for corporations trying to bundle extra responsibly whereas making certain their merchandise nonetheless look environmentally pleasant, a easy “minimal packaging” label can provide a a lot better various to the more and more frequent (and demonstrably dangerous) observe of overpackaging.
