The provision of sustainable packaging as CSR strategy in the Irish Food and Drink Market: A comparison of consumers’ perceptions of environmental friendliness and their identification of recyclable and compostable packaging materials.

There is an increasing demand on industries to provide more sustainable packaging alternatives. As a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy many companies in the food and drink industry have invested capital into creating and supplying food grade sustainable packaging. Before deciding on which sustainable packaging alternative to provide, food and drink companies would benefit from knowing more about how Irish consumers view different sustainable materials, and whether they are likely to identify them correctly or not. This study carried out a questionnaire on 422 respondents. The results show that while compostable materials are viewed as the most environmentally friendly packaging option, they are rarely identified correctly. In contrast, recyclable materials are viewed as slightly less environmentally friendly (but not environmentally unfriendly) but identified by most consumers. This study also tested for correlation between factors that might stimulate a consumers’ purchase intentions (environmental interest, subjective knowledge, and objective knowledge) and the correct identification of either material. The results show that even the consumers most likely to purchase a product based on its sustainable packaging, are unlikely to identify compostables correctly and even those least likely to choose sustainable packaging are still likely to identify compostables correctly. Future research into the factors that help a consumer identify recyclable packaging would be beneficial to the literature and food and drink industry as the information could be use by marketers to make compostables more widely identified so that brands choosing to provide compostable packaging can yield the best results for their shareholders