Save the Earth or Save Money?
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- Green resources,
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Is it better for a package to save the earth, or to save money? Can a package balance the offer of value and kindness to the earth? Or will the urge to get greenbacks kill the green message?
Posted February 16, 2009
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Save the Earth or Save Money
Barry Sanel
Lisa,
In my opinion, packaging is not going to save the earth, but when you design packaging it is important to accommodate source reduction into your plan by specifying the minimum amount of material to protect the product through it's life-cycle. As an example would be designing all of the packaging components, (Primary, secondary and shipping) dimensions to maximize unit load efficiencies. That is, removing the shipment of air at all levels.
A minor beverage example would be converting from an RSC shipper to an end or side slot tray. Even converting to a registered shrink package from corrugate helps. Smaller and lighter packages cost less to make, produce and ship will help profits.
Once you create a package the end part of its lifecycle is disposal. More often than not, in the USA, this means that the product will end up in a landfill. By creating less of it at the design stage will pay off in volumes later.
Save the Earth or Save Money?
Scott Dyvig
Lisa, great question. I think over the next 5 years there will be ample opportunities to shift to sustainable packaging without increasing costs. When evaluating products that may be good candidates for becoming greener, I look those where a right-sizing initiative can offset any increases due to implementing sustainable packaging materials.
Also, I have a certain amount of faith that the work being done at the academic level will help identify products and uses of new sustainable materials. This could help reduce the weight of material and the cost to a point where more and more sustainability projects can be financially beneficial.
I believe that as more projects are completed, it will become easier and cheaper for future projects. For example, as companies reduce EPS consumption and increase molded pulp usage, the prices may shift so that going green can be cost-effective. Also, packaging suppliers will get more comfortable designing materials like molded pulp to be as effective as EPS in protective packaging.
Nothing will 'save the earth'
Greenlabelman
Lisa, very insightful post. I have to start by saying, 'NOTHING will save the earth because the earth is not in trouble! We, as humans may be in trouble, but the planet will do just fine without us! What we do need to do is make it a cleaner, more hospitable place for our children which is why I started on the path to sustainability.
The best way to keep our planet cleaner is to cut down fewer trees, conserve water, and use less energy when producing AND recycling products.
As packaging professionals and experts we are in the unique and powerful (as it relates to our discussion here) position of being able to effect a change in the way we source, produce, and recommend packaging materials.
Those who know me know that I put FiberStone® tree-free, water-free, water-proof paper at the top of my packaging wish-list. I'd like to see everything printed on and packaged in FiberStone® which is why it has been my personal mission to collaborate on the development of FiberStone® bags, pouches, labels, tags, banners and lot's of other stone paper products.
Beyond this, I love the move to reduce packaging that we're seeing, I'm leery of bioplastics and oxodegradables, and I'm growing a bit tired of all of the talk about recycling. Recycling is great, but it won't 'save the planet', all it does is 'save landfill', something we're not running out of!
Expecting lot's of challenges on that last one!
PS- I DO believe that we can balance green with green currency! In fact, we've helped several clients 'lead the charge' with FiberStone® and, as a result be rewarded with free press and, in turn increased sales!
Greenbacks still seem to come first
Bill Mechar
Hi Lisa,
Funny, I have been offering recycled PET made from the Soda Bottle for about 16 years and over the course of time people still put the dollar first. I think only in the last couple of years, has industry taken seriously, the value of recycled products. Education is the key and discussion groups like this should be contributed to and shared throughout all industries. It is unfortunate that people only start to listen when a company like Walmart start a sustainability program and all of a sudden the world is on the "bandwagon".
Save the earth or save money?
sean sabre
Hello Lisa
I don't believe it is a mutually exclusive proposition. Here is an article in Industry Week that dives into a bit of detail on this topic but in a nutshell you can do both and a lot of firms are seeing it ... every day.
http://www.industryweek.com/articles/sustainable_packaging_initiatives_a...
I haven't worked on a project yet in which we couldn't get wins on both fronts. In fact, we measure every design project under the 4D approach (ergonomics, cost, sustainability and logistics). What we find interesting is the amount of savings on a sustainable re-design initiative is dependent on a firms breadth of ownership and, of course, the intensity of their supply chain scope. Cost savings for packaging assembly (reducing materials and "touches") and material spend might be realized by a brand doing their own packaging but if they outsource in a co-packing model it might be "shared". If the brand doesn't handle its own distribution it might not realize any of the cost savings inherent in any pallet density gain but these savings are real. Finally, a firm that is responsible for its own reverse logistics and asset disposition will reap the benefits of stripping and re-selling their recyclate scrap that was intentionally designed into the packaging as a recoverable. BUT, a large firm that pays for materials, assembly labor, distribution and fulfillment and the reverse channel will realize a cost benefit for all these dimensions and typically do in sustainable system oriented design work. The larger the firm and their supply chain footprint the larger the savings.
It is relevant but in my experience savings are a bi-product of sustainable packaging design in a systems oriented approach. The question is how much of the system is the firm controlling and therefore benefitting from?
Regards
Sean
Save the Earth or Save Money? Or Go Back to Basics?
Kitt...Hi Lisa & All,
In my opinion, going back to basic could be one of the approaches to meet both ends. Like, using single materials instead of multiple structures, where applicable. Designing the simple geometric shapes rather than sophisticated shapes which would lead to more material usage. Minimizing packaging levels and materials usage.
What do you think if or not the technology may further harm the earth? What about active and intelligent packaging when it becomes common in the future. Will those chemicals added be remained to the earth?
At the end, I still doubt that whether 'going back to basic' could attract consumers' perceptions and/or today's business competitive strategy. Or we may have to urge every one of us to be content with the 'simple' and stay with what we really need...
Regards,
Kitt
Both
Adam Pawlick
Lisa -
Honestly I think the target should be to accomplish both. All package designs should be evaluated against the ever popular and now relatively famous Triple Bottom Line. In the past everything was too often judged by only one of the three legs, economics. This has created a mind set that anything that is going to improve the other two legs (social and environment) has to come at an increased cost, therefore hurting the economic justification. We have found this isn't so. We operate under a No Trade Off's proposition. Any new package must be ideally designed to meet the Triple Bottom Line. Any modified or changed package can not negatively impact any of those three legs. For example, if a packaging engineer wants to redesign a bottle to save money (improve economic) they can't add gram weight (hurt environmental), change to a worse material (PET to PVC hurtin environmental), or reduce the functionality of the bottle (removal force on the cap, hurting social). Most of the time this is done naturally, but we have killed off projects that negatively impact one of the three legs.
Its no longer time to think of these as individual towers, they truly are legs of a stool, if one is short the whole stool collapses.
Save the Earth or Save Money?
Lisa Baer
Adam,
Great points here. I am glad that you brought up the Triple Bottom Line concept. Here is an article on just that subject - Put the TBL at the Center of Business Agenda http://www.packworld.com/article-24570
The Earth or Money?...Sustainable Packaging and Common Sense
Thomas Schneider
One of our well-known US colleagues recently commented to me that, in his opinion, the sustainable packaging movement appears to be morphing into a cost cutting program. From an environmental perspective that may or may not be viewed as positive. From a practical, common sense point of view, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
Sustainable Packaging is a relatively new and essential component that should be part of the thought process of every Packaging Professional from this moment forward. Sustainable Packaging techniques and requirements are already being woven into the fabric of many cultures around the world. Developing countries such as Ghana, India, China, Sri Lanka to name a few, are capable of starting at a more highly developed position, in terms of packaging materials and methods, than those of us in western Europe and North America. Developing countries have no “sunk costs” in old packaging methods and habits. They have the advantage of taking what we have had to learn, at considerable investment over several decades, and applying that knowledge into new packaging projects immediately. This circumstance suggests a significant competitive advantage for some of the manufacturers in those countries on Day One, especially when coupled with their already low manufacturing costs and a practical mandate to do more with less. Sustainable Packaging is clearly a valuable competitive tool and will increase in value as we go forward.
Finally, Sustainable Packaging cannot work in isolation. It is an important part of the global sustainability movement. It’s about changing our habits and our mindset so that we think in a different hierarchy, with reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover nearer the top of the list. Consider a future with high oil/energy prices. No matter what the solutions, they are likely to be part of a long-term incremental process that will employ a blend of technologies, applied in context, with common sense. And so it is with sustainable packaging too.
This new way of thinking should play well in the Packaging Community. Dr. Carl Olsmats, General Secretary of the World Packaging Organisation states, “It is not primarily an issue of sustainable packaging, but rather how packaging can best contribute to a sustainable society. This contribution will also change over time as knowledge and society develops. [Ultimately,] there will be no sustainable packaging without sustainable products to put into them. These products will not be made unless there are sustainable companies to make them. And these companies need a sustainable society in which to work. [Sustainability Packaging] “in principle means that continuous improvement has to be applied to all packaging.”
The Case for Packaging is clear, and good news for the Packaging Professional. Because packaging is ubiquitous, it impacts virtually every culture in the world, every day. And this is really the point. Packaging can become a very powerful tool for educating people about sustainability. The practical, common sense application of Sustainable Packaging principles has the unique capacity to teach everyone about how a Sustainable Society can function.
Thomas L Schneider, CPP
Board Member, World Packaging Organisation
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