How Unnecessary Paper Packaging Creates the Illusion of Sustainability

The environmental threat posed by plastic packaging is well known. The popular press and environmental groups alike have long stressed the dangers of plastic products, from their impact on marine wildlife to their buildup in landfills. In contrast, paper is often seen as the sustainable, environmentally friendly alternative — despite the reality that more than six million tons of paper packaging end up in U.S. landfills every year.

Whether due to genuine concern for the environment or the widespread vilification of plastic among consumers, many companies have invested heavily in reducing their use of plastic packaging. Unilever, for instance, has pledged to halve its use of non-recycled plastic by 2025, while British supermarket chain Tesco launched a sustainable packaging initiative to reduce its annual packaging footprint by 1.5 billion pieces of plastic. And these efforts may indeed have a positive environmental impact. But another trend that’s grown out of the anti-plastic movement is a lot less positive: overpackaging. More and more brands have begun adding superfluous paper packaging on top of plastic packaging in order to make their products look more environmentally friendly, without actually reducing plastic waste.

For example, skincare brand Nivea sells plastic bottles of body lotion packaged in cardboard boxes, even though a similar product from the same brand is available in just the plastic bottle. Similarly, Sensodyne toothpaste is commonly sold in plastic tubes that come inside additional paper packaging, although it can also be sold without the paper boxes. This sort of overpackaging is everywhere, across product categories and geographic markets, despite being both more expensive to manufacture and worse for the environment.

Unfortunately, there’s a very good reason companies are adopting this clearly problematic approach: It works. Through a series of eight studies with more than 4,000 participants from across the U.S., the UK, and the Netherlands, we found that consumers will perceive a product’s packaging as more environmentally friendly if it’s plastic with an additional layer of paper than if the product is visibly packaged in identical plastic packaging but without the paper. In other words, simply slapping some paper on top of plastic packaging makes a product seem more environmentally friendly, even if you can still see that it’s wrapped in exactly the same amount of plastic. These perceptions in turn make consumers both more likely to buy a product, and willing to pay more for it. In one study, for example, participants were willing to pay an average 15 cents more for a granola bar in the same plastic wrapper if we added additional paper packaging on top.

Interestingly, we further found that these perceptions of sustainability weren’t just determined by whether the product had paper packaging or not, but by the relative proportions of plastic versus paper packaging. In one study, we had consumers imagine buying cherry tomatoes that were wrapped in paper and plastic. We kept the amount of plastic the same for all participants, but varied the amount of paper — and we found that their perceptions of environmental friendliness increased in step with the amount of paper used.

Part of what makes this overpackaging trend particularly insidious is that it is most salient for consumers who are most environmentally conscious. Interest in sustainability varies across political affiliations and countries, but we found that people who reported engaging in more eco-friendly behaviors were more likely to view overpackaged products as environmentally friendly. As a result, the very consumers who are most interested in pushing companies to make sustainable choices are likely inadvertently encouraging the environmentally harmful practice of overpackaging.

The good news is, overpackaging isn’t the only way to signal sustainability and attract environmentally conscious consumers. In our studies, we found that instead of additional paper packaging, simply adding a “minimal packaging” sticker to plastic packaging could correct the misperception that overpackaged products are more sustainable. Especially for products for which plastic is necessary to ensure safe transportation and lengthen shelf life, this kind of explicit messaging can help reduce consumers’ biases against the responsible use of plastic packaging (without the need for unnecessary paper waste).

This kind of messaging is effective because alongside the common perception that “plastic is evil,” consumers today are increasingly aware of the importance of minimal packaging as a goal in and of itself. Indeed, more than half of respondents in a recent Deloitte survey said they would consider a product sustainable if it used minimal or recyclable packaging, regardless of what that packaging was made of. Many brands are already incorporating this trend into their strategies, explicitly signaling their commitment to responsible packaging through slogans such as Zara’s “Our boxes are made of boxes with a past,” an online statement from Kiehl’s that the majority of its products don’t use “secondary packaging,” or 12 Tides’ “compostable packaging” label on its chip bags.

Of course, these marketing efforts must be complemented by genuine investment into sustainability — and “minimal packaging” labels certainly should only be used if a brand has actually ensured that it is using the minimal possible packaging, ideally under the supervision of a trade organization or regulatory body that maintains clear, consistent standards. But for companies looking to package more responsibly while ensuring their products still look environmentally friendly, a simple “minimal packaging” label can offer a much better alternative to the increasingly common (and demonstrably harmful) practice of overpackaging.

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