The relevance of the type of material for the perception of sustainability in packaging

The main objective of this article was to investigate, through the visual perception of consumers, the perceived environmental value of packaging, considering the ability of the type of material used to improve communication. For this, it used methods inherent to the area of Design and Machine Learning, in which Phase 1 consisted of the development of experimental packages designed to support perceptual evaluations on communication about sustainable orientation; Phase 2 adopted methods inherent to the area of Machine Learning and Empirical Aesthetics to collect data with the public; and Phase 3 was equipped with the data collected for the training of predictive and interpretation models that corroborate the understanding of the perception of sustainability through the materials. It was possible to verify, based on the responses provided by the public, the existence of types of materials that contribute to the perception of environmental value, such as paperboard and glass, and materials that undermine this perception, such as metais and polymer, demonstrating the need to disseminate more in-depth information about the subject to the consuming public.