Paper Tatiana Sokolova accepted for publication in the Journal of Consumer Research

Abstract

Packaging waste makes up more than ten percent of the landfilled waste in the U.S. While consumers often want to make environmentally friendly product choices, we find that their perceptions of the environmental friendliness (PEF) of product packaging may systematically deviate from its objective environmental friendliness. Eight studies document the PEF bias whereby consumers judge plastic packaging with additional paper to be more environmentally friendly than identical plastic packaging without the paper. The PEF bias is driven by consumers’ “paper=good, plastic=bad” beliefs, and by proportional reasoning, wherein packaging with a greater paper-to-plastic proportion is judged as more environmentally friendly. We further show that the PEF bias impacts consumers’ willingness to pay and product choice. Importantly, this bias can be mitigated by a “minimal packaging sticker” intervention, which increases the environmental friendliness perceptions of plastic-only packaging, rendering plastic-packaged products to be preferable to their plastic-plus-paper-packaged counterparts. This research contributes to the packaging literature in marketing and to research on sustainability, while offering practical implications for managers and public policy officials.

The link to the paper: https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucad008/7008764?utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=jcr&utm_medium=email