Sustainable packaging has become a growing priority for businesses aiming to reduce their environmental impact. Small adjustments can make a major difference, but achieving sustainable packaging is far from straightforward. It requires you to balance multiple factors, including material use, recyclability, and energy efficiency. The question is, how can businesses navigate these complexities to design packaging that is both practical and environmentally friendly?
Navigating complexities: the importance of focus
Recently, a large grocery store chain in the Netherlands changed its yoghurt packaging from round buckets into square containers. This change in shape increases the product’s packing density, which reduces transportation costs and emissions. In the same month, this grocery store chain launched another initiative: it decided to cut off the stems of pineapples that are imported from Ecuador. According to them, this reduced emissions by 30%.
All this is part of a wider movement towards more sustainable packaging—which, as it turns out, involves many aspects. Examples include:
- ·Using as little material as possible
- ·Increasing the recyclability of the materials used
- ·Reducing the energy required for production
- ·Reducing transportation emissions
- ·Keeping food spillage to a minimum
Striking the right balance between these factors is no easy feat. A practical approach is to focus on one or two key drivers. This helps avoid choice paralysis, as well as the complexity of finding the perfect balance for each individual component. In that spirit, we’ll spend the rest of this blog post looking at sustainable packaging through the lens of transportation.
Changing shapes: exploring the options
Stacking bucket-shaped containers results in poor packing efficiency. That’s because a large volume of air is located between the different containers. A rough estimation in figure 1 (see below) shows a 21% drop in packing density by this odd-sized shape. But if you change the container shape, more plastic might be used. If plastic consumption increases drastically, it can completely negate transportation efficiency gains.
Often, it’s possible to tackle both issues with one redesign. You can, for example, reduce the bucket’s bulky lid and remove the plastic handle to save plastic.
With the pineapples, a more creative approach is conceivable, too. Rather than cutting the stems, you can redesign the fruit. In Japan, square watermelons have been grown since the 1970s, just so they’ll fit into fridges more easily.
Cube-shaped fruits can be packed more densely than their natural round counterparts. Plus, it’s not necessary to use genetic engineering to grow square watermelons—you can ‘force’ them to grow in cube-shaped containers that let light through. There is a downside, though: they can cost more than 200 dollars, as many melons die in the process. So, this approach is not that sustainable after all.
How to cut through complexities?
How to make the right choices? Numerous complexities and unforeseen effects can make it difficult to answer this question. For example, changes in packaging might confuse customers and therefore result in sales losses. On top of that, packaging choices such as plastic-wrapped cucumbers may appear environmentally harmful. But the reduced emissions from less spillage can outweigh the additional emissions from the plastic used.
At Argon & Co, we help you cut through these complexities to focus on what truly matters to your business. Want to learn more? Feel free to reach out.
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