Abstract
Sustainable packaging innovations are becoming increasingly available in the marketplace. However, their communication to consumers remains a challenging task, as neither their distinctiveness nor their higher sustainability level is recognized. Contributing to research in environmental psychology, the current work conceptualized and tested the new concept of Meaningful Reminder as a strategy to communicate such distinctiveness and higher sustainability. To understand how a meaningful reminder can be created and used, this research investigated how eco explicit (logos, labels and statements) and implicit packaging design cues (auditory, tactile and visual elements) combine and interact and how such a combination can be used to the advantage of sustainability, to increase sustainability salience, perception and sustainable disposal behavior of the packaging and its content. Across three lab studies and different measures (lexical decision task, thought listing task, self-reported scales and observations of consumers’ disposal behavior), we identify the conditions under which combining explicit and implicit cues can be counterproductive, not leading to any increase or even a decrease in sustainability salience and perception. However, under different conditions, we show how sustainability salience, perception of packaging sustainability and even consumer sustainable disposal behaviour can be positively affected.
Highlights
It is widely recognized that current patterns of mass production and consumption have contributed to welfare, and created immense environmental problems, profoundly contributing to pollu tion, global warming and destruction of natural ecosystems (Krausmann et al, 2009; Oreskes, 2018)
We propose that the combination of implicit and explicit design elements improves sustainability communication if it functions as a meaningful reminder
The lexical decision task showed no main effect of implicit cue (F(1, 208) = 0.04, p = .84) nor of explicit cue (F(1, 208) = 0.37, p = .54) but did suggest a marginally significant interaction between implicit and explicit cues (F(1, 208) = 3.44, p = .06, part. η2 = 0.02) on sustainability salience, to the extent that implicit and explicit cues work against each other
Summary
It is widely recognized that current patterns of mass production and consumption have contributed to welfare, and created immense environmental problems, profoundly contributing to pollu tion, global warming and destruction of natural ecosystems (Krausmann et al, 2009; Oreskes, 2018). Despite its essential roles in facilitating efficient logistics, pre venting product losses and as a “silent salesman” (Rod, 1990), packaging is “moving waste”. Once it reaches the end user, it is a mere container that is thrown away. At the forefront of this effort, increasingly many industries are committed to eco-design, by for example developing and promoting new packaging alternatives with a lower environmental impact (Del Borghi et al, 2020; Guillard et al, 2018). Biodegradable, compostable, recycled materials or (packaging-related) technologies able to extend the shelf life of products and reduce their waste are rapidly becoming available in the marketplace (Boz et al, 2020; Guillard et al, 2018)
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