Are Americans Willing to Reduce Packaging

Glynn Davis over at Retail Bulletin has an interesting post today on consumer reaction to excess packaging.

Nielsen stats from this week in the US showed majority of Americans would give up all forms of packaging provided for convenience purposes if it would benefit the environment. Consumers said they would give up packaging designed for easy transport, packaging designed for use in cooking, and packaging designed for easy stacking.

Davis writes that sounds great until you delve deeper into the same survey and find that a minority of people would be willing to give up packaging designed for other purposes such as keeping food fresher for longer or keeping products in good condition.

Perhaps most troubling was the revelation that 10 percent of Americans would not give up any form of packaging to help save the environment.

Herein lies the problem for retailers and manufacturers - many consumers claim to do one thing in surveys but their actions say something completely different.  Davis says, "In reality they don't give a damn about the environment."

The piece is quite timely and highlights the challenges major companies face in this arena.  Sustainable is Good covered P&G earlier in the week and their greener packaging improvements fall in line with the results of this survey. 

Makers of many mainstream consumer products are hesitant to make significant packaging adjustments solely for environmental purposes perhaps because as Davis points out consumers are difficult to gauge and the last thing companies want to do is jeopardize sales.   

Comments

[Nathan Aaron]

(Ok, bare with me and my miniature "American's are Lame rant" and yes, I'm an American; I just get tired of how this country thinks)

Americans = Excess! And they're SO slow to change, my word! So here's the thing, ignore all that American people whining, and do it anyway. I believe it's completely up to the industry to make the changes, reduce the packaging, make their products more environmentally friendly. If that is all the general population has available to purchase, they will (after a lot of whining and moaning.) Enough with the polls.

Sorry, it's my Disdain for Americans day. ;-)

- Nate
www.methodlust.blogspot.com

[mvellandi]

Forget consumers and force the packaging redesigns on them. If it isn't a significant part of the purchasing decision (based on actual behavior, not focus group or survey results), it doesn't make sense to sell the packaging as part of the value proposition. Treat the packaging instead as one would apply a cost/benefit analysis throughout the supply chain.

[Randy Ludacer]

For those that believe in free and unfettered markets above all else, it must seem very convenient to put the onus of consumer waste on individual consumers. ("We suppliers have no choice, but to satisfy our customers.") Some strong environmental regulations could change that, while keeping the playing field level for competing manufacturers. How many among us would be recycling our bottles and cans, if our government was not involved? New York City stopped recycling for a while in 2002 (after 9/11). During that period, without the recycling program in place, I threw away my bottles and cans and I assume other New Yorkers did the same.