Behavior Driven Packaging?
- Filed in:
- Bags & pouches,
- Blisters & clamshells,
- Bottles,
- Boxes,
- Carded packaging,
- Containers, rigid,
- Flexible packaging,
- Folding cartons,
- Labels,
- Liquid cartons,
- Protective packaging,
- Resins,
- Shipping platforms/bulk,
- Thermoformed packaging,
- Trays,
- Corporate strategy,
- Optimization,
- Recycling,
- Green resources,
- Green marketing,
- Regulations,
- Reusability,
- Beverage,
- Food,
- Non-food,
- Personal care,
- Pharmaceutical
Grant Kristofek
Much discussion on this forum has focused on how to make packaging more environmentally friendly through measures such as life cycle analysis (LCA), source reduction, supply chain consolidation, operations-based efficiencies, and countless other tactical means. These are certainly critical approaches for improving the overall sustainability of packaging, but I'd like to add another consideration to the dialogue.
Let's ponder the end-users of packaging and their behavior.
Once we've designed, refined, manufactured, and distributed our packaging there are many people who will interact with it along its journey.
People will handle our packaging en route to retail, and it must fulfill its duty to protect our valuable goods inside. People will browse store shelves loaded with products from countless competitors, and hopefully our packaging will do its job as a salesman, inducing consumers to head for the cash register with our product in their cart. People will use or consume the product contained in our packaging and will eventually dispose of the packaging waste. Ultimately, people will pick up that waste and transport it to a reclamation facility or landfill.
One attribute common to each person along the packaging journey is that his or her behavior drives the ultimate destiny of the packaging.
A package that has been sustainably considered at every step of the design and manufacturing process may nonetheless become an environmental burden afterward if the interactions along the way don't effectively guide the behavior of each packaging stakeholder.
At Continuum, the firm where I work as a mechanical engineer and champion of the sustainability cause, we just completed and published a year long study of consumer motivations around sustainability called Colorblind. We sought to understand how typical American consumers think, feel and act when it comes to "green."
We found that average consumers aren't always interested in the environment, sustainability or green - however, they are quite interested in being economical, effective, and resourceful. They care about their families' and their own health and well-being.
With these insights in mind, how can we begin to guide the behaviors of these important packaging stakeholders to make sure that our sustainable packaging innovations aren't all for naught?
For starters, I think we must spend time to understand the people who will interact with our packaging and incorporate their points of view as we consider the interactions along the packaging journey. It is our responsibility as packaging designers and manufacturers to make sure that our packaging stakeholders are well-educated, well-prepared, and un-burdened by confusion or difficulty as they face the inevitable decisions about how to deal with the packaging we have created for them.
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THE WHITE DRAGON
Dean Bellefleur
Well put Grant and I’m pleased to see that we have an appreciation for the power of packaging design. Let me tell you the story of the “White Dragon”.
Having lived and worked in Shanghai for a number of years I’ve actually observed the phenomenon. China has a staggeringly large transient population that travels predominantly by rail, either for work or to return home during festivals. Local entrepreneurs feed the white dragon by providing hot meals to travellers at every platform the train stops. For convenience the food is served in polystyrene clamshell packaging along with a set of chopsticks. Once finished with the meal the polystyrene packaging is tossed out the train window and falls along side of the rail tracks to form the white dragon that runs the full length of the rail system. How many dragon’s have we created?
Commodity packaging which dominates our waste sites is a big problem if we don’t recycle. What the green movement doesn’t understand is that it’s not possible to make all packaging redundant. During the last round of judging I did for sustainable packaging I saw the large brand owners replace glass containers for PET on commodity products such as mayonnaise. Since the consumer perceives glass to signal a premium product why not work with glass to be a more environmentally friendly packaging format, rather than focusing on the bottom line. Is there a need to package all wine in aseptic carton containers?
The fact of the matter is that the North American affluent shopper expects to be entertained by the package and cares less for the content of the package today. A good comparison would be the Faberge Eggs that were designed to amuse the Czar & royal family. As marketers, have we over exaggerated the role of packaging?
So I agree that as players in the packaging arena our responsibility is to proactively steer brand owners in directions that embraces environmental consciousness. Just looking into the history of packaging will provide insight on secondary uses of packaging, packaging collectibles, two way packaging systems and closed loop recycling of packaging. But let’s not leap from the frying pan into the fire to appease the emotional charged consumer without a 100% deployable alternative.
Behavior Driven Packaging?
sean sabre
Hello Grant
Your post and Dean's commentary have once again taken the sustainability discussion from a sustainable package to a sustainable system. This is where everyone should focus and if the sustainable packaging movement had 1/10 as much focus on a system driven approach as it does on proliferation of materials we would be much further down the road.
In regards to end users and their behavior, I won't say the US system is quite as bad as the "white dragon" example but we have had the luxury of sleeping on modifications to our system unlike our brethren in Europe for example who don't tolerate the litter and don't have the room for mega-landfills. An important dimension to this is recognizing the fact that the people who swoop away the curbside recyclables bin, the transportation infrastructure handling the waste, the local MRF, the recylcate broker and the recyclate buyer are all private firms with a fiscal agenda. It's an industry and without an emphasis on recycled content and a lot of consumption your local MRF might landfill your aluminum cans or PET water bottles if the marketplace so dictates.
I agree that the habits are disturbing and I don't even want to see a statistic in regards to how much recyclate is disposed of daily in consumer kitchen trash cans on their way to the landfill BUT I think we underestimate how much behavior we could modify with some basic public service campaigns. If the greater public had refreshed stats post 70's "don't be a litterbug", knew more about sustainable packaging labeling and the toxins emitted in backyard burning, etc we could see some big wins.
It is scary, we have a lot of work to do but I think expanding the scope of the movement to understanding the recovery industry and refreshing the campaigns to the public at large are good places to start.
Sean
Packaging disposability
K.V.Gaekwad...It is a universally known fact that packaging plays a pivotal role starting from protecting the product it holds to adding value to the product and developing product image and product presentation to augmenting product sales across the counter until it lands in consumer's hands. Innovative packaging is now used by a majority of industries such as food & beverage; cosmetics; pharma products; non-food small industrial packing like oils & lubricants; cleaners; rust removers; adhesives, etc. Accordingly packaging materials varies from glass to various types of plastics to tin, etc.
Ultimately the question after use is the independent disposal by the consumer, by either dumping it in a dustbin or recycling it. For dumped packaging, the recycling industries should take a lead to convert it for re-use. Thus, it all depends on decision to go for innovative packaging, packaging material (recyclable) to use, packaging design and the re-useability of packaging at the consumer level. This will not only cover up the prime objective of product promotion & sales, but at the same time take care of disposable packaging waste which has become a cause of concern and of which a lot of funds & time has been utilisized in conducting seminars, educating the public, govt. officials and much more in making arrangements for disposing of such wastes.
In short, both reusability and recycling of packaging will certainly take care of the packaging disposability worry.
Two Areas for Exploration
Rock
Grant, you posted a very intriguing question. Also, thank you for sharing the insightful results of the studies from your company. Unfortunately, the result supports the challenges that face the society and the packaging industry: Consumers are not willing to pay more for greener products.
With this in mind, I can see two areas to explore for solutions: 1) Greener and More Expensive Products; and 2) Greener but Inexpensive Products.
(1) Greener and More expensive Products
As the studies offered by Grant suggested, our assumption is that consumers are not willing to accept or absorb extra cost for greener products. Consumers can be enforced to be responsible for greener consumption by government intervention, that are subsidies to marketers of greener products, or taxes to shoppers of non-green products.
This is unpopular approach for many of us .However, I believe it is relatively practical. Despite the studies, I believe end-users generally agree that the green is good for society, and that it is okay if society as a whole pays. Absorbing the cost as a part of the tax is much more acceptable way for being responsible for the cost since the cost is not very visible than directly paying out cash at a retailer.
(2) Greener but Less Expensive Products
This is where the best solution lies because cost is less for a society. As Mr. Gaekwad already mentioned, industry stakeholders should strive to enhance the reusability and a rate of recycle. They should also search the alternative greener materials and design which costs less. The products which can be categorized in this area should be crowned as innovative products.
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