Consumers consistently reward corporations for adding eco-friendly products to their inventory, even when those additions result in more overall waste. This psychological phenomenon, identified in a recent study published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, has been dubbed the “sustainable additive bias.” The findings suggest a disconnect between how sustainability is perceived by the public and the actual environmental impact of corporate practices.
Researchers from the University of Bath, alongside partners from five other institutions, conducted nine separate studies across diverse sectors, including hospitality, consumer goods, festivals, and trade shows. Their work reveals that companies often gain more “green” credibility by introducing new, sustainable items than by removing unnecessary waste—a finding that presents a significant challenge for businesses attempting to transition toward circular, low-waste models.
One of the most telling experiments took place in April 2025 at a four-star European hotel. Researchers monitored 302 guests to determine how different amenity strategies influenced perceptions of the brand. Rooms were divided into three groups: those with an expanded set of “eco-friendly” toiletries and reusable items, those with a minimalist, pared-down set featuring refillable dispensers, and a control group with standard hotel amenities.
The results were striking. Guests in rooms equipped with a larger array of green items rated the hotel significantly higher on sustainability, giving it an average score of 5.05 out of a possible scale. In contrast, the pared-down rooms scored 4.63, and the standard rooms received a 4.30. Paradoxically, the rooms perceived as the most sustainable actually generated the most waste. Housekeeping teams tracked the weight of discarded items, finding that waste in the “fuller” eco-friendly rooms accounted for 55.1% of the total weight of items offered. This was higher than both the standard rooms (52.9%) and the pared-down rooms (51.1%).
Lead author Diletta Acuti of the University of Bath explains that this bias stems from the visibility of corporate effort. “Additions are visible and removals are not,” she noted in a university statement. When a company adds a bamboo toothbrush or organic toiletries, consumers perceive an active investment in the environment. When a company removes a disposable item, however, the absence often goes unnoticed, leaving the customer with no tangible signal of a sustainability initiative. Conversely, when companies add conventional, non-green items, consumers’ sustainability ratings actually drop, indicating that the bias is specific to how we perceive “green” interventions.
This creates a difficult dilemma for procurement teams and sustainability officers. Transitioning to sustainable materials is an essential step, but determining whether an item is necessary at all is an equally—if not more—critical decision for reducing a company’s environmental footprint. While major hotel chains have begun phasing out single-use plastics in favor of bulk dispensers, the study suggests that customers are slow to credit these removals as genuine environmental leadership.
To bridge this gap, researchers suggest that companies must be more communicative about their subtraction efforts. By explicitly labeling the environmental motivation behind a pared-down offering, companies can help customers recognize that “less” is a deliberate, sustainable choice rather than a cost-cutting measure. Using recognizable, branded cues—such as high-quality refillable dispensers—can also act as a visual substitute for the items that have been removed.
However, the authors caution that companies must remain transparent. With the rise of anti-greenwashing regulations, any marketing claims regarding waste reduction or sustainability must be backed by data. For businesses that already treat waste as a strategic resource, the researchers suggest a data-driven approach: by tracking procurement volumes, reception requests, and waste weights before and after changes, companies can prove the effectiveness of leaner models to stakeholders and customers alike. As the industry moves forward, the challenge will be to educate consumers that the most sustainable product is often the one that was never manufactured in the first place.
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