Consumers are increasingly putting pressure on manufacturers to improve that packaging has on the environment, with ethical packaging now becoming a “must have” quality when purchasing a product, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Sustainable packaging was once a niche that only a small minority of consumers took notice of. As a result, a small number of products boasted of how environmentally friendly their packaging was, and few consumers based purchasing decisions on how a pack could be disposed of.
Survey
According to GlobalData’s 2016 Q3 consumer survey, 75% of consumers worldwide now think that living an ethical or sustainable lifestyle is important to create a feeling of wellbeing.
Mayu Teeven, Consumer Analyst at GlobalData, comments: ‘This sudden interest in sustainability has been driven by more open discussions via social media, and increased government lobbying resulting in action against plastics. The result of this pressure is evidenced by changes to legislation, such as the UK introducing a minimum 5p charge for plastic carrier bags.’
‘Currently, the biggest challenge for producers is to convince consumers that sustainable packaging materials are worth the extra cost. Although there are long-term savings to be made by manufacturers moving to more sustainable materials, in the short term, prices will likely need to increase to cover the research and development costs of developing new materials and upgrading machinery to work with the new packs’, Teeven ends.
www.globaldata.com