Packaging experts say sustainability remains elusive

“There really isn’t a right or wrong way in sustainable design. What is lacking at the moment is sufficient clarity,” said Mark Shayler, managing director of UK-based environmental and eco-design consultancy eco3.

The challenge for brand owners is intensified, Shayler told delegates, because sustainable initiatives do not always tie up with consumer perception. “Once we have the best option, the consumer may need to be educated because it may not be what they think is the best solution,” he said.

Shayler told delegates, however, that this should not discourage packaging users and designers from coming up with solutions that challenge consumer perception, as he said it is at the design stage that the biggest sustainability gains are made.

“For every £100 spent solving a problem in production, it would cost £10 to solve it in development and just £1 to solve at the design stage,” he told delegates.

While agreeing that designers are critical in achieving true sustainability in packaging, brand owners also need to get buy-in from their marketing teams, said Dorothy Mackenzie, chairman of London-based brand consultancy Dragon Rouge.

“New demands to provide sustainable brands and packaging are going to change the way the industry works,” she told delegates. “Design and marketing people need to get their minds around materials and regulations a little better than they have in the past. Making the wrong decisions can be a high risk for the brand.”

Mackenzie said surveys have shown that there has been a clear evolution in consumer’ attitudes to recycling and environmental issues. “The number of consumers that put environmental concerns at the top of their agenda is still small, maybe 5% , but many more — up to 45% — think about sustainability together with price,” she said.

For this reason, many brand owners are keen to be seen to be addressing packaging issues and are making environmental claims a key element in their advertising. However, she said that the risk that must be avoided in following the consumer is limited effectiveness.

“What often resonates with consumers is a very small change to the packaging rather than a big change to the supply chain. For example, using post consumer recycled material in the pack rather than using sustainable energy,” she said.

Philippe Roulet, head of global packaging materials and training at Nestlé in Switzerland, also emphasized the difficulty in selecting sustainable packaging solutions. “There is no right packaging — some packaging is good for some applications and some is good for others,” he told the conference.

Nestlé’s approach is to ensure its packaging is fully integrated with its products, which Roulet explained means taking a holistic approach to both and making systematic use of LCA-based eco-design tools, including its internally developed Piqet packaging lifecycle database.

The scope for packaging to contribute to sustainability also varies according to local factors, Roulet pointed out. In the developing world, up to 50% of food is wasted in the supply chain. By contrast, the developed nations lose just 3% of total food production in the supply chain but 10 times that amount is wasted in the home.

Roulet also suggested that the period of easy sustainability gains — made largely through weight savings — may be drawing to a close. He said that Nestle’s successful Eco water bottle initiative has seen the weight of a 500ml bottle for still water slashed from around 18g to little more than 12g in two years, realizing energy savings of 25%.

However, weight reduction initiatives on this scale will be difficult to maintain moving ahead, he predicted, as the packs become unacceptable to the consumer. “You can’t continue. The technology is there [to go lighter] but there are consumer issues.”

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