McKinsey survey: US consumers prioritize packaging price and convenience over sustainability

US consumers rank packaging quality, price, and convenience higher than environmental impact, according to a new McKinsey survey. The survey also finds that food safety and shelf life are essential to consumers, while packaging appearance fell in importance.

The March 2025 survey explores attitudes toward sustainable packaging from 11 countries across four continents. McKinsey has released the US consumer results of the study and plans to share the rest of the survey responses in the coming months.

The report finds: “Companies looking to build market share should consider action in four areas: understanding the granularity of consumer behavior, engaging the full packaging value chain, designing packaging to meet the full set of consumer needs and preferences, and prioritizing consumer education.”

Price over planet 

The survey corroborates McKinsey’s 2020 and 2023 surveys, in which consumers consistently ranked environmental factors less critical than other concerns when purchasing products.

According to McKinsey, consumers are concerned about how packaging can impact food safety and shelf life.The importance of price and quality has increased since 2020, with more than 70% of respondents saying they are “very important” or “somewhat” important to purchasing decisions. 

Only 33% of respondents said the same about environmental factors. 

According to the report, the driving forces behind consumer preference for price and convenience over sustainability are increased costs and inflation.

The survey also finds that consumers are most concerned about the impact of packaging on food safety and shelf life. It highlights how a long shelf life can help minimize waste and prevent additional consumer costs.

The survey also indicates that ease of use, label information, and durability of packaging are consistently high-ranking factors for consumer purchasing options, while packaging appearance was the least important packaging characteristic.

Recyclability at the forefront

Aside from food safety and cost concerns, 77% of respondents believe recyclability is the most important characteristic when considering the sustainability of packaging. 

In addition, a “significant portion” of respondents are concerned with the level of recycled content and reusability of packaging. 

US consumers ranked glass packaging as the most sustainable, with paper and cardboard as second.Regarding materials, US consumers perceive glass packaging as the most sustainable, while paper and cardboard are ranked second most sustainable. 

“The ranking of packaging substrates is largely consistent with what the survey revealed as the factors most important to US consumers when considering the sustainability of packaging,” says the report.

“The substrates most closely tied to recyclability (glass, paper, and metal) are viewed most favorably, while those that are considered to be more difficult to recycle — such as multimaterials (liquid cartons and laminated packaging) — are viewed less favorably.”

Industry responsibility 

The 2025 survey also asked consumers who they see as “most responsible for sustainability in packaging” and almost 70% of US consumers pointed to brand owners and packaging producers. 

“Notably, however, less than 10% of the US consumers in our survey were able to name a single packaging company when asked,” adds the report. 

Consumers do not want to “shoulder the perceived burden of choosing the correct packaging,” and prefer to place the responsibility of sustainability onto packaging creators and producers. 

The report’s findings can help brands and companies tailor their packaging design and materials to suit consumer preferences. 

It concludes: “Providing and emphasizing solutions that are circular (easy for the consumer to see as recyclable) can provide immediate sustainability legitimacy, while solutions that are strong on other dimensions (such as CO2 impact) require either concerted consumer education or targeting toward those subgroups that view these dimensions as more important.”