When a company wants to be more sustainable, adding an eco-friendly feature isn’t always better than taking something away.

People often favour “more”. Studies suggest that statements framed around “more” are easier to process and remember than those framed around “less”.

In experiments that involved modifying Lego structures, redesigning miniature golf courses and improving digital grids, it was found that participants routinely overlooked opportunities to improve outcomes through subtraction. People tended to add things rather than remove them, even when subtraction would work better. Recent consumption trends also show this tendency: the size of the average car is growing at a rate of 1cm every two years as larger models have become more popular.

One reason why people favour more is that additions are visible. When people judge a service or a product, they tend to focus on what is in front of them and overlook what is missing. It is easier to notice something a company has added than to value what it has deliberately removed.

That can distort how consumers judge sustainability. A hotel room with bamboo toiletries, a recycled plastic water bottle and other eco-friendly extras may look greener than a room with fewer items, even if removing unnecessary products means less waste. This tendency is known as the sustainable additive bias: people perceive environmentally friendly additions more favourably than reductions, even when reducing use or waste may bring greater environmental benefits.

This bias occurs because visible eco-friendly additions can signal that a company is making an effort and is committed to sustainability. A reduction leaves fewer obvious eco-friendly cues, so consumers may interpret it as “less effort” rather than as a considered attempt to reduce environmental harm.

We tested this bias across nine studies in different product and service settings in our latest study. In an experiment with 302 hotel guests, rooms with more eco-friendly amenities were judged more sustainable than rooms with fewer. Yet guests in those rooms generated a higher proportion of waste. Across the studies, consumers could recognise the benefits of removing conventional, less sustainable items. The bias arose when they compared adding and removing items presented as eco-friendly.

Why is this problematic? When hotels replace single-use toiletries with refillable dispensers, or companies remove unnecessary items from product bundles to cut waste, they may expect consumers to hail these changes as environmentally responsible. But the opposite may happen. Companies that genuinely want to reduce their impact on the environment may be misjudged.

This does not mean companies should avoid replacing less sustainable products with more sustainable alternatives. The concern is adding eco-friendly items that are unnecessary. Companies should explain why reducing these items benefits the environment, so customers do not mistake using less for making less effort.

So sustainable consumption needs a rethink and a cultural change.

Less is more

Companies should explain why less is more and make the work behind those decisions prominent, explaining the environmental logic: which items or resources are being reduced, why they are unnecessary, and how the change cuts waste or environmental impact.

A food delivery company, for example, could stop automatically including disposable bamboo cutlery and napkins with every order, and instead let consumers request them when needed. The company could explain that it changed its ordering and packing process to avoid sending items many consumers do not use, reducing unnecessary material without changing the meal itself. This helps consumers recognise the effort behind a reduction rather than interpreting it as a lower quality offer or a lack of commitment.

Italian circular-fashion brand Rifó offers an example of making reduction visible: its sustainability report explains how its pre-order model is designed to match production with demand and avoid making garments customers do not need. They also encourage consumers to repair rather than replace with new items.

By emphasising the effectiveness of simple solutions, policymakers can celebrate reduction as a virtue. They can showcase production and consumption practices that use fewer resources, offer fewer unnecessary items or prevent waste – thereby reducing their environmental impact. This approach may benefit consumers too: reducing consumption and materialism can improve people’s wellbeing, while minimalism enhances happiness and life satisfaction. Giving positive examples a visible platform can help challenge the assumption that progress always means adding another product or feature.

Sustainable production alone cannot solve the problem of overconsumption. We need to learn that less can be better. We are accustomed to seeing addition as improvement, but removing what is unnecessary does not mean reducing quality. Sometimes it creates a more efficient service and a genuinely better environmental outcome.