Consumers give credit to brands that adopt environment-friendly solutions to produce and distribute their products and the majority of them look for sustainable products and packaging and custom packing solutions when making buying decisions.
It’s not just about how sustainable your processes are, anymore. If you have no vision for replacing traditional packaging, you risk losing your customers to your competitors — companies that are a step ahead of you with the development of an environmental-friendly policy that includes the supply chain and the distribution of their products.
61 percent of consumers consider green packaging when buying a product and decide where to shop based on this element. If you want to remain competitive in your niche, start learning how to package a product without causing further damage to our planet.
It’s Time to Cut Waste
Companies around the world produce around 300 million tons of plastic every year. Half of it is for single use — that’s money wasted and a severe threat to the health of our planet. As consumers, we aren’t very good at recycling — only 14 percent of the plastic packaging arrives in recycling plants. Thinking about what could have been done with all the plastic we don’t recycle, companies waste around $120 billion per year by not getting seriously involved in recycling processes.
All the money you spend on single-use or too large packaging can be used for other purposes. You can come up with alternative solutions to reduce waste, by experimenting with new design and innovative packaging ideas. This way, you can cut down costs while enhancing your product with unique presentation. Reduce the size or change the shape of your product, for example, to make it easier to ship.
Besides helping you to cut costs, sustainable packaging can improve your reputation significantly among your prospects and current customers. Coca-Cola, for example, is looking to recycle all packaging by 2030, as part of their campaign “World without Waste.” And the world’s most famous company isn’t the only one looking to reduce the amount of packaging. Walmart, Starbucks, and even McDonalds invest hundreds of millions of dollars in environment-friendly packaging solutions.
Packaging Should Protect Both Your Product and The Environment
Almost all industries count on plastic to deliver their products, from fashion and pharmaceutical to hardware and food. While quitting plastic would make it impossible for companies to fulfill their customers’ orders on time, replacing it with recyclable plastic is a step to a more environment-friendly packaging.
43 percent of consumers want to know how they can recycle a package. The numbers grow significantly when we look at the young generations. As much as 80 percent of Millennials would prefer sustainable packaging to be clearly labeled as ecological.
People are interested in doing their part of the job for keeping the environment clean. It’s your job to wrap your products in recyclable or reusable packages and to teach your customers how to treat these products the right way.
Choosing high-quality materials for your packaging can reduce the impact of your business on the environment, besides providing your buyers with an excellent customer experience — robust packages preserves the quality of your products during delivery better than low-quality solutions.
When investing in excellent packaging, you make sure your products travel safely to their destination. This way, you cut costs, as you won’t have to replace damaged products, and you improve your reputation as a reliable provider.
Moving to User-Friendly Packaging Solutions
The packaging industry is entering a new era of sustainable materials and innovative design, which allow companies to cut costs and save significant resources. No matter what you produce, you must treat packaging as an essential part of your product to remain competitive. After all, packaging has a significant influence on how your customers see your product.
Most companies are interested in implementing practical packaging solutions for their customers — such as paperboard boxes that are easy-to-open and easy-to-fold after receiving the product. This way, the packaging can be deposited, reused or recycled after opening with minimum effort.
Ergonomics are vital when choosing the right packaging options for your products. If your customers have difficulties in opening your products or in getting rid of the boxes after the purchase, they’re less likely to buy again. By providing them with simple solutions, you also offer a better user experience, which can help you improve customer retention rates and increase revenue.
Choose packaging solutions that can help you protect your products, without having a negative impact on the environment. Look for packaging that reduces the number of resources used in packaging and shipping your products — flexible packages that can be folded, for example, to minimize transportation costs, made from recyclable materials when possible.
I was in Vancouver recently and I was pleasantly surprised to see paper based straws being used at a fast food restaurant that we were having lunch at.
Accidentally i came across your blog, thanks for the insights. Glad that we share same values. Sustainable living is about living in a way that benefit the health as well as the community and environment. We have control over the things like the way we store food to ensure that chemical won’t get leached into it. Choosing to buy Bamboo plates instead of plastic plates can downsize the plastic emission and helps to live a sustainable life. PacknWood’s goal is to create value by using natural, compostable and recyclable materials to design simple, high-quality products that are equally elegant and functional.