Think Inside the Box: The Role of Sustainable Packaging in Environmentally Conscientious Shopping

Based on public opinion, addressing plastic pollution is as imperative as solving climate change and biodiversity loss. One emerging market trend to solve plastic pollution is the shift towards plastic-free ‘sustainable packaging.’ However, pro-environmental solutions are not without risk of negative consequences. Previous research highlights how waste-reduction mechanisms – which sustainable packaging ostensibly represents – can alter consumer behaviours, reduce guilt, and increase overall consumption. Similarly, research suggests that sustainable packaging erroneously influences perceptions of a product’s and brand’s attributes favourably. While these data allude to a risk of compromising consumers' conscientiousness, the relation between sustainable packaging and environmentally conscientious shopping remains unknown. In this research, we ask: What is the relation between sustainable packaging and purchase intent, package and product evaluations, and pro-environmental behaviours? And second: What are the implications of sustainable packaging on the environmental conscientiousness of consumer habits? Using a mixed-method qualitative and quantitative survey from a sample of 156 Canadians, the results suggest: 1. A package's perceived level of sustainability positively influenced perceptions of the product's sustainability; 2. The footprint of a sustainable package was viewed disproportionately more favourable when it is on a conventional product; 3. Products with sustainable packaging received a higher purchase intent, regardless of whether the product itself is sustainable; 4. Sustainable packaging elicited more emotionally-positive, plastic-specific comments, without a concomitant increase in non-plastic-based environmental or negative comments; and 5. Consumers preferred pro-environmental behaviours that focus on plastic and packaging rather than product-focused pro-environmental behaviours. By influencing consumers’ perceptions and capitalizing on consumers’ focus on plastic packaging, we argue that sustainable packaging represents a new stage of greenwashing that corporations may co-opt as a market strategy.

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