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Background and purpose
This Roundtable focused on the consumer - do they care about the environmental impacts of packaging? And if they do, how can brand owners design and market more sustainable packaging to gain a competitive edge?The Roundtable tried to explore sustainable packaging from a marketing perspective. Starting with presentations on available knowledge about consumer attitudes and behaviour, it explored barriers, opportunities and potential marketing strategies through a series of panel discussions.
Outcomes and key learnings
The first three presentations outlined recent market research on public attitudes to the environment and/or packaging. The research results set up the proposition that while consumers continue to say they care about the environment, and aspire to being good citizens making responsible choices, in general they don’t. According to the statistics, 30-75% say they care (depending which research you read) but only 3-5% make environmental choices. It is not clear what is causing this dissonance but we obviously need to work out how we can unlock the untapped potential of this group for products are to be marketed on the basis of their ‘green’ credentials. Many consumers do support the environment, but often take the easiest option. The point was made that, rather than using this as an excuse not to do something; we need to use self-interest to shape marketing programs.
Consumers have very little choice of product in supermarkets – maybe this is one reason why surveys show so little impact on purchasing behaviour.
There are three points in the lifecycle where packaging sustainability becomes an issue: design of product/packaging, point of sale and end of product life / recycling. It is only in the final stage that the environment becomes a real issue for the consumer. There is virtually no driver for the consumer to consider this at point of sale and the consumer has no involvement at the design stage. Positive lessons learnt from the surveys for marketing include:
- Consumers get very confused by labelling – it needs to be simple.
- When we are affected personally as consumers, we do care. Industry therefore needs to make environmental claims relevant and highlight personal impacts.
- Remind people that many others around them are doing the right thing – make them feel that their small part contributes.
- All parts of the supply chain and governments have a responsibility in educating consumers.
- However, messages have to be simple, and co-ordinated (e.g. standard logos and messages).
It was concluded that there is potential to engage consumers in buying greener products, and therefore to support product differentiation on sustainability, but marketing strategies need to take into account the complex drivers and influences on consumer purchasing behaviour.As one market researcher commented:
Consumers ARE interested in the environment, and recycling has a high status. Unfortunately, it has fallen off the radar screen lately - largely due to media and government pre-occupation with other issues (security, health, education, economy et al). Admittedly, there is little connection to behaviour - but there are reasons for this and manufacturers are partly to blame through inconsistent marketing and information, and a lack of choice at point of sale.
Significance for SPA directions
The discussion highlighted the need for sustainable packaging strategies to engage marketing professionals, particularly within the brand owner companies. Clever technologies or materials will not convince consumers to change purchasing behaviour without a strong marketing campaign to support new products. |
