Addressing Consumer Perspectives on Sustainable Food Packaging: Insights from the Research Literature

Packaging constitutes a large proportion of global plastic waste, and developing more sustainable packaging solutions is of majorinterest to designers, the packaging industry, and researchers. Research regarding sustainable packaging, however, is mainly focusedon technological development, design, and marketing, yet sustainability is not merely a technological issue but is also aboutcreating packaging features that both enable and encourage consumers to make more sustainable consuming choices. This chapterintroduces a literature review that explores the research regarding sustainable packaging from the consumer point of view, focusingon the roles and agency consumers are perceived to have in packaging systems. Drawn from the literature published in 2000–2023,three thematic entities providing different perspectives on packaging-consumer-society relations were recognised: (a) package as afunction, (b) waste and circular economy and package, and (c) the green consumer. There is also a considerable lack of research thatwould acknowledge the cultural aspects and underlying cultural patterns that guide consumers’ consumption habits regardingpackaging.