There have been significant shifts in consumer behavior in Europe since 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent years of record inflation across the European Union.1 Geopolitical instability and upheavals within the global trade system may also have important implications for both consumer and business demand.2 Given the increased uncertainty, how have European consumers’ attitudes and sentiments toward sustainable packaging changed?
To better understand these dynamics, we conducted a comprehensive survey in March 2025 of consumers’ attitudes toward sustainable packaging in five European countries.3 Our research includes insights from about 1,000 respondents in each country surveyed and builds on our global studies, which have surveyed tens of thousands of consumers since 2020. This year’s survey examines preferences across packaging materials, product categories, and sales channels while also tracking trends over time to provide a comprehensive view of consumer sentiment.
Five key findings emerge from the European countries surveyed: Two relate to the factors most important to consumers overall when making purchases and when considering packaging, and the remaining three deal with consumer attitudes toward sustainability.
First—in line with previous surveys and findings from other regions—price and quality remain the most important product characteristics that influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. Environmental concerns show a relative downward trend compared with other characteristics across the European countries surveyed, though they remain at a relatively higher level compared with non-European countries included in our global survey.4
Second, food safety and shelf life have remained the most important packaging characteristics that influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. Environmental impact continues to be relatively less important, though 42 percent of consumers surveyed in Europe still rank this factor as “extremely important” or “very important.”
Third, European consumers consider circularity to be the most important sustainability characteristic for packaging. All circularity-related factors—including recyclability, reusability, and the use of recycled content—rank highly, while bio-based materials and the use of fewer materials rate as less important.
Fourth, there is some divergence in which packaging materials are considered the most sustainable. Glass and paper rank highest across all five countries, but there are important differences regarding polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, for example, which are viewed as sustainable in countries where strong deposit return schemes exist (such as in Germany and Sweden) but much less so in other areas.
Fifth, consumers across all surveyed European countries view brand owners and packaging producers, not retailers or consumers, as most responsible for promoting the use of sustainable packaging. About half of consumers across countries are prepared to reward brand owners and packaging producers by paying more for a sustainable product, but this proportion has fallen since 2020, perhaps due to rising cost sensitivity.
Overall, these insights suggest that European packaging players need to tailor their strategy to the evolving consumer preferences related to sustainability in packaging. Key priorities to succeed in Europe include enabling circularity, addressing regional differences, balancing affordability with functionality, and investing in marketing and consumer education to build trust and drive market differentiation.
What matters most to the European consumers in our survey in 2025?
The 2025 global sustainability packaging survey of European consumers revealed five key findings regarding how much and in what way these consumers value packaging sustainability:
1. Quality and price remain the most important product characteristics
Quality and price remain the most important product factors influencing purchasing decisions (Exhibit 1). Over time, the shares of consumers rating these characteristics as “extremely important” or “very important” have remained higher than for all other factors across the European countries surveyed, reaffirming the importance of these characteristics in the decision-making process. This preference ranking could be caused, at least in part, by increased cost consciousness resulting from inflationary and geopolitical pressures, which have affected household budgets in Europe.5
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A heat map shows the rank importance of factors for consumers’ purchasing decisions averaged across product categories for 5 countries: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden, plus an average across those countries. Factors include perception of quality, price, convenient access, brand, product packaging, environmental impact, and social impact. For each country, each factor is highlighted according to whether respondents overall marked it as one of their top two factors (judged by the percentage of respondents who indicated that factor was “extremely important” or “very important”), of middle importance, or one of their bottom two factors. An arrow on each box shows whether the rank of each factor increased, decreased, or stayed the same relative to 2023. Perception of quality and price have remained the key purchasing factors in all countries. Environmental impact is consistently one of the least important factors, and has fallen in relative importance between 2023 and 2025 across all five countries; an average of 30% of respondents ranked environmental impact as extremely or very important in 2025.
Note: Derived from share of respondents who selected each of the importance levels.
Source: McKinsey Packaging Survey (March 2023, March 2025)
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Conversely, the relative importance of environmental impact compared with other product characteristics has declined over time. After rising to fourth place in 2023, it has now fallen back to fifth in 2025, making it one of the least important decision factors among those surveyed in choosing products. Despite this downward trend, results show that environmental impact remains slightly more important to European consumers than those in other regions, such as North America, South America, and Asia.6 Environmental impact still ranks higher than product packaging and social impact, suggesting a relatively stronger concern for sustainability issues in Europe.
One other notable shift is that the importance of brand in purchasing decisions has grown modestly, which may indicate that some consumers in Europe increasingly view brand reputation as a proxy for quality and value. As such, this shift in the importance of brand further reinforces the dominance of quality and price as key decision drivers in the European market.
In all, while environmental concerns persist, consumers in the European countries surveyed are increasingly focused on quality and price. Companies in the packaging value chain should balance their sustainability initiatives with the practical and economic considerations that drive consumer behavior in Europe.
2. For packaging, consumers place a greater weight on food safety and shelf life than environmental impact and aesthetics
Packaging plays an important role in shaping European consumers’ purchasing decisions, with practical considerations such as food safety and shelf life taking precedence. According to our 2025 survey, these two characteristics consistently rank as the most important packaging attributes, with 60 to 70 percent of consumers across the European countries in our survey rating them as “extremely important” or “very important” (Exhibit 2). This highlights the continued importance of ensuring product quality and longevity, particularly in categories such as food and beverages.
A heat map shows the rank importance of factors for consumers’ purchasing decisions averaged across product categories for 5 countries: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden, plus an average across those countries. Packaging characteristics include food safety, shelf life, information included on the label, ease of use, durability, environmental impact, and appearance. For each country, each factor is highlighted according to whether respondents overall marked it as one of their top two factors (judged by the percentage of respondents who indicated that packaging-related factor was “extremely important” or “very important”), of middle importance, or one of their bottom two factors. An arrow on each box shows whether the rank of each factor increased, decreased, or stayed the same relative to 2023. Food safety and shelf life remain the principal packaging concerns for consumers across all countries bar Germany, where durability is ranked just above shelf life. Appearance and environmental impact are considered the least important and second least important overall, respectively, with environmental impact falling in relative importance in all countries bar France since 2023.
Note: Derived from share of respondents who selected each of the importance levels.
Source: McKinsey Packaging Survey (March 2023, March 2025)
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In contrast, environmental impact has remained one of the least important packaging characteristics for consumers in the European countries included in this survey. Between 2023 and 2025, environmental impact has declined slightly in perceived importance. For example, the proportion of consumers who ranked environmental impact as “extremely important” or “very important” fell from 45 percent to 42 percent in the United Kingdom and from 48 percent to 45 percent in Germany.7 Although these changes may appear modest, they reinforce the broader story that environmental impact continues to lag behind other packaging characteristics. In 2025, potential environmental impact ranks among the bottom two factors, just above packaging appearance—the least important factor across all European countries in our survey. This suggests that when consumers are forced to make trade-offs, they may deprioritize sustainability in favor of more immediate and functional packaging attributes.
However, when asked about their attitude toward packaging sustainability as a stand-alone criterion—and not in comparison to other factors related to packaging—a significant subset of consumers across the European countries surveyed expressed significant concern. Between 32 percent and 41 percent of respondents across countries surveyed indicate that they are “extremely concerned” or “very concerned” about sustainable packaging when making purchasing decisions (Exhibit 3). This proportion does vary by country, with Germany reporting the highest rate of concern and Sweden the lowest.
There is, however, little variation in the perceived importance of environmental impact between generations or income groups, though younger consumers still show slightly higher rates of environmental concern. This contrasts sharply with the US market, where environmental concerns vary widely between generations, with younger consumers (Gen Zers and millennials) showing much higher levels of concern than Gen Xers and baby boomers.
Ultimately, while sustainable packaging is an important consideration for a significant subset of consumers across the European countries surveyed, food safety and shelf life are the most critical packaging characteristics. Companies in the packaging value chain should ensure they are addressing functional priorities while continuing to differentiate themselves by exploring ways to integrate and ensure sustainability within their offerings.
3. Recyclability and reusability remain the top sustainability priorities in packaging for European consumers
When it comes to sustainability characteristics in packaging, consumers across the European countries in our survey place the highest importance on circularity. Traits such as recyclability, reusability, and the use of recycled content consistently rank as the most important sustainability characteristics for packaging. Among these, recyclability stands out as the top priority, with consumers in every surveyed country rating it as the most important factor when considering sustainable packaging (Exhibit 4). This preference aligns with trends from our 2025 global survey, in which consumers also ranked recyclability as the leading sustainability attribute.8
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A heat map shows the rank importance of factors for consumers’ purchasing decisions averaged across product categories for 5 countries: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden, plus an average across those countries. The ranking is based on the percentage of those who considered the characteristic very important, important, or somewhat important. Sustainability characteristics include the following: recyclable, made of recycled content, compostable, reusable, lightweight or uses less material, low CO2 impact, or biobased. Overall, recyclable packaging is the most importance factor across all 11 countries, with other aspects of circularity—whether the packaging is reusable and whether it’s made of recycled content—also ranking highly across countries. Consumers in all 5 countries also ranked whether packaging was biobased as the least important factor. There is more variation in the perceived importance of compostability, which is ranked as the second most important factor in Italy, but 6th out of the 7 factors in Germany and Sweden.
Note: Derived from share of respondents who selected each of the importance levels.
Source: McKinsey Packaging Survey, March 2025 (n = 5,068)
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Reusability and recycled content follow closely behind recyclability, though their importance varies more significantly between countries. For example, while many consumers value the ability to reuse packaging or the incorporation of recycled materials, these factors do not consistently rank as highly as recyclability across all regions.
Compostability varies in importance depending on the country. In Italy, for example, 62 percent of consumers rate compostability as “extremely important” or “very important,” making it the second most important sustainability factor in the country. By contrast, in Germany and Sweden, compostability ranks among the least important characteristics. This divergence highlights the importance of understanding local preferences when packaging companies are deciding on the sustainability characteristics of their products.
Bio-based packaging materials, such as those derived from renewable biological sources, consistently rank as the least important sustainability characteristic among consumers in the markets surveyed. While these materials may play a role in broader sustainability strategies, they are not currently a primary focus for most consumers.
The emphasis that consumers from the European countries in our survey place on circularity—particularly recyclability, reusability, and recycled content—indicates a clear preference for packaging solutions that align with established recycling systems and promote resource efficiency. To meet consumer expectations and advance sustainability goals, companies in the packaging value chain should prioritize these characteristics while also considering regional variations.
4. Glass and paper-based packaging are seen as the most sustainable materials
Consumers from across the surveyed European countries widely perceive glass and paper-based packaging as the most sustainable, though preferences for other packaging types vary across countries. Glass packaging has particularly high favorability in France (63 percent) and Germany (61 percent). And Sweden exhibits relatively lower scores than other countries across all packaging categories but follows ranking trends similar to other countries (Exhibit 5).
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A heat map shows the relative ranking of packaging types by how sustainability they are perceived to be for 5 countries: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden, plus an average across those countries. The packaging types ranked as glass bottles and jars, paper and cardboard, metal cans / beverage cans, liquid cartons, aluminum foil, polyethylene terephthalate bottles, other rigid plastic containers, laminated packaging, and plastic films. Packaging types are ranked on the percentage of respondents who considered them extremely sustainable, very sustainable, somewhat sustainable, not too sustainable, or not at all sustainable. Overall, consumers are not fully aligned on what is considered the most sustainable packaging type, though both glass bottles and jars and paper and cardboard are ranked within the top three across all 5 countries. Plastic films are ranked as the least sustainable packaging type across 4 of 5 countries, and second least sustainable in Germany. There is significant variation in the perceived sustainability of PET bottles, which are ranked in the top three most sustainable packaging types in Germany and Sweden, but 6th out of nine packaging types in Italy.
Note: Derived from share of respondents who selected each of the sustainability levels.
Source: McKinsey Packaging Survey, March 2025 (n = 5,068)
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Paper and cardboard packaging also enjoy strong support, particularly in the United Kingdom, where 62 percent of consumers rate it as “extremely sustainable” or “very sustainable.” However, paper-based packaging is viewed as significantly less sustainable in France. PET bottles, while not universally considered sustainable, rank highly in Germany and Sweden—countries with strong deposit return schemes or high collection rates.9 Such differences highlight the influence of local recycling systems and, in some cases, consumer familiarity with specific materials.
These regional variations underscore that no single packaging material is universally seen as the most sustainable. Companies should consider local nuances in recycling systems and consumer behaviors when designing sustainable packaging solutions for the European market.
5. Consumers want brand owners and packaging producers to drive sustainability in packaging, but only about half of consumers are prepared to pay more
The European consumers surveyed overwhelmingly see brand owners and packaging producers as the primary drivers of sustainability in packaging, with 60 to 66 percent of respondents across all countries assigning primary responsibility to these groups (Exhibit 6). However, there are notable regional differences: In the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden, consumers are more likely to hold brand owners accountable, whereas in Germany and Italy, packaging producers are seen as the key drivers for sustainability. In contrast, only 25 to 31 percent of European consumers believe either regulators or consumers themselves bear the primary responsibility for advancing sustainable packaging. One way to interpret these findings could be that European consumers generally perceive brand owners as large material users and generators and perceive packaging producers as having the most control over packaging options.
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Vertical bars show the perception of who should be responsible for sustainability in packaging in percentage of for 5 countries: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden, plus an average across those countries. Across countries, consumers view brand owners and packaging producers as the most responsible for driving sustainability in packaging, placing significantly less responsibility on themselves, retailers, or regulators.
Note: Derived from share of respondents who selected each of the stakeholders.
Source: McKinsey Packaging Survey, March 2025 (n = 5,068)
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However, when it comes to willingness to pay for sustainable packaging, European survey respondents are showing increased cost sensitivity. The share of consumers unwilling to pay more for sustainable packaging rose between 2020 and 2023 and has remained at a higher level in 2025 (Exhibit 7). At least part of this shift may be due to inflationary pressures, which continue to affect household budgets and make affordability a critical factor (as discussed above). While there are small differences between countries, France consistently reports a lower willingness to pay for sustainable packaging than other European markets surveyed.
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Three sets of horizontal bars show the willingness to pay for sustainability packaging in 2020, 2023 and 2025 for 5 countries: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Sweden, plus an average across those countries. For each country within each year, the bar is divided into the percentage of respondents who indicated they were not willing to pay more for sustainable packaging, those that were willing to pay a little more, and those that were willing to pay a lot more. In 2025, as in previous years, each country has a substantial proportion of respondents that is willing to pay more or substantially more for sustainable packaging—ranging from 41 percent in France to 52 percent in Italy. Overall willingness to pay for sustainability packaging fell between 2020 and 2023. It has recovered slightly in the United Kingdom and Sweden in 2025, but remains at or close to 2023 levels in Germany, France, and Italy.
Note: Derived from share of respondents who selected each level of willingness to pay for sustainable packaging.
Source: McKinsey Packaging Survey, March 2025 (n = 5,068)
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These findings highlight a dual challenge for companies: meeting consumer expectations for sustainable packaging while addressing cost concerns. By focusing on innovative, cost-effective solutions, brand owners and packaging producers can lead the way in driving sustainability while maintaining affordability for European consumers.
Navigating sustainable packaging in 2025: Key actions for success
The 2025 market for sustainable packaging across Europe presents a mix of opportunities and challenges for packaging players. While food safety and shelf life remain consumers’ top priorities, interest in sustainable packaging solutions remains strong, particularly in options that emphasize recyclability, reusability, and circularity. However, market differences in consumer preferences, willingness to pay, and perceptions of responsibility highlight the need for more-tailored strategies.
To succeed in this dynamic market, packaging companies should consider the following critical actions:
- Prioritize circularity while addressing functional needs. Consumers from the European countries included in this survey value packaging solutions that align with circularity principles, such as recyclability, reusability, and the use of recycled content. However, these sustainability features must not come at the cost of core functional attributes such as food safety, shelf life, and durability. Packaging players should focus on designing solutions that meet the full spectrum of consumer needs, which means combining strong sustainability credentials with flawless practical performance.
- Address cost sensitivity through the use of affordable sustainability solutions. Packaging players must innovate to deliver cost-effective sustainable solutions that do not alienate price-conscious consumers. Identifying and targeting those segments willing to pay a premium for sustainability could also unlock new opportunities.
- Adapt to regional preferences and recycling systems. Consumer perceptions of sustainability vary significantly across Europe. For example, glass and paper-based packaging are widely favored, but their perceived sustainability differs by country, as does the acceptance of materials such as PET bottles. This variation is based on a range of factors, including regulations and the availability of established recycling systems. Packaging players must adapt their strategies to local preferences and recycling infrastructures to maximize impact and consumer acceptance.
- Collaboration between brand owners and packaging producers can help meet consumer needs. European survey respondents hold brand owners and packaging producers primarily responsible for driving sustainability in packaging, with regulators and individual consumers seen as less accountable. Packaging companies should collaborate closely with brand owners to develop innovative, sustainable solutions that resonate with consumers and align with their expectations.
- Educate consumers and build trust in sustainability claims. Preferences and knowledge about sustainability in packaging often vary by geography and, to a lesser extent, demography. Packaging players should prioritize marketing and consumer education to clarify the benefits of their solutions, highlight their sustainability efforts, and help build trust. Transparent communication can serve as a powerful differentiator in an increasingly competitive market.
Based on our work with clients, we see that the European packaging market is evolving rapidly, shaped by shifting consumer preferences, regulatory developments, and economic pressures. By focusing on these five key actions, packaging players can better position themselves to meet consumer expectations, navigate local market and regional complexities, and drive growth in a market that values sustainability but is not prepared to compromise on functionality or affordability.
