Title: Perceiving and believing? The subjective persuasiveness of graphic design elements and eco-friendly packaging materials on consumers' environmental consciousness

Authors: Carmen Grebmer; Sarah Diefenbach

Addresses: Department of Economic and Organisational Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Leopoldstrasse 13, 80802 München, Germany ' Department of Economic and Organisational Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Leopoldstrasse 13, 80802 München, Germany

Abstract: To foster environmentally responsible consumption, it is essential to understand how packaging elements guide consumers in evaluating the environmental-friendliness of a product, particularly information from non-verbal, executional packaging design elements that are elusive and not related to the product's actual environmental-friendliness. We used a 2 × 2 experimental design to investigate how participants (N = 276) inferred differences in a product's environmental-friendliness and greenwashing tendency by taking their environmental consciousness (EC) into account and using two important non-verbal packaging design elements. The results showed no difference in the information utility but rather in the credibility of the design elements, which guided the evaluation of product environmental-friendliness. Participants with high EC (HEC) focused on the type of material, while graphic design elements signalled a strong greenwashing tendency. Participants with low EC (LEC) considered both graphic and material elements, with a tendency towards graphics highlighting. Further effects and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Keywords: environmentally responsible consumption; packaging design elements; environmental consciousness; packaging communication; eco-friendly packaging; product environmental-friendliness; greenwashing; packaging graphic design; material packaging design; packaging pollution; packaging green cues.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSDES.2022.128517

International Journal of Sustainable Design, 2022 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.234 - 252

Accepted: 30 Nov 2021
Published online: 25 Jan 2023 *

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