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Designing for Packaging Sustainability. The Effects of Appearance and a Better Eco-Label on Consumers’ Evaluations and Choice

Part of: Responsible Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Sophie Krah ,
Tea Todorovic  and
Lise Magnier

Abstract

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The environmental burden of packaging is huge. However, redesigning packaging to make it more sustainable without damaging its other functions is not always easy and can have a negative impact on consumers’ choice. In this paper, we adopt a user-perspective and test the effects of packaging appearance and a better eco-label on consumers’ responses. Based on the literature, we designed an eco- label using a traffic light system with an objective sustainability score enabling to compare the sustainability of different packages. The results of our experimental study (N=120) show that while a sustainable (vs. typical) appearance in packaging has a positive effect on perceived sustainability, it has a negative effect on perceived usability. However, we demonstrate that the presence of a high score on the eco-label positively impacts the perceived sustainability of both the sustainable and the typical packages and the choice intentions. This eco-label also enabled to mitigate the negative effects of the sustainable appearance on perceived usability. Designers and policy-makers can use the results of this paper to positively influence evaluations of and choice for sustainable packaging.

Keywords

PackagingSustainabilityEco-labelEcodesignCommunication
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , July 2019 , pp. 3251 - 3260
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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