The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted consumer purchasing habits, leading to the explosion of ecommerce — according to this UN report, ecommerce made up 17% of all global trade in 2020.
But with ecommerce, unlike buying products in store, customers have no way of knowing how clean or sustainably a product is packaged. As this McKinsey report shows, the pandemic has caused ecommerce consumers to favor packaging that prioritises hygiene and food safety. This is especially true as consumers around the world are fearful of the possibility of COVID-19 transmission via packaging.
Before COVID, consumers wanted brands to use more sustainable materials. Balancing sustainability with hygienic packaging is especially difficult when plastics offer superior COVID protection. With the rise of ecommerce and consumer concerns around safety, many business leaders are asking themselves — “do customers still care about sustainable packaging?”
Ecommerce and consumer demand for eco-friendly packaging
Despite COVID pressures, your customers still want you to grow green. In Europe, consumers are promoting sustainability with their wallets — among many European small to medium-sized businesses, sustainable products sales are growing faster than overall sales. On the ecommerce front, one in three European shoppers stop buying from brands that have unsustainable packaging, while 58% of consumers want less packaging overall.
In the US, another McKinsey study revealed that between 60 and 70% of consumers would pay more for sustainable packaging and an SDC Exec survey highlighted that 68% of American consumers are more likely to buy online products that are packaged using sustainable materials.
Clearly, consumers still care about sustainability, meaning that you should as well. Especially because how sustainable your packaging is will impact product sales. But it’s not only consumers who are pushing for sustainable packaging. Globally, governments are introducing environmental regulations that include fees for non-sustainable packaging.
For many brands, embracing sustainable packaging is an opportunity to appeal to your customers and comply with regulations while doing more good in the world. But to do that, packaging companies first need to understand how their value chain affects their sustainability.
A babushka doll of unsustainable packaging practices
Imagine the scenario; Eco-conscious Kevin goes online to buy an adapter that can connect his camera to his laptop. The adapter arrives the next day in a box that’s the size of his toaster. Kevin opens the box to discover a smaller bubble-wrapped box nestled among styrofoam chips.
After hacking off the bubble wrap, Eco-conscious Kevin pulls out the final hand-sized product box, a box that prominently displays a company logo. Like 43% of consumers, Kevin might feel guilty about ordering an item that arrived in unsustainable packaging.
This example illustrates how consumers might be put off brands where products aren’t sustainably packaged. But this only covers one aspect of your value chain. If the company that packaged Kevin’s adapter isn’t committed to sustainability, then their value chain might represent a babushka doll of unsustainable packaging practices. And as customers care about how sustainable your packaging is, they’re also increasingly concerned about the sustainability of your value chain.
How Amazon, Coca-Cola and ASOS are making their packaging more sustainable
Driven by consumer demands, many top companies have begun leading the charge towards sustainable packaging. Here’s what Amazon, The Coca-Cola Company and ASOS have done:
Amazon
The ecommerce juggernaut is working with brands to eliminate supply chain waste and boost the use of sustainable packaging. Introduced in 2019, their Shipment Zero initiative aims to make all of their shipments net carbon zero by 2030 by using renewable energy throughout their value chain.
The Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola is building the capacity to be able to collect and recycle 100% of their packaging by 2030. To further this goal, they’re gradually increasing the ratio of recycled and recyclable content in their packaging.
ASOS
ASOS, another ecommerce giant, altered the thickness of their iconic mailer bags, reducing their plastic usage by 583 tons. They’ve also built a system with their packaging manufacturers to collect used packaging and refurbish and reuse them for new mailing bags.
What can your packaging company do?
Your packaging company should communicate with your value-chain partners to meet customer demands for eco-friendly packaging. In building your sustainability strategy, you should ask yourself, “how much waste are we putting out? And where does our packaging end up after customers are done with it?”
Here are four starting points where you can begin improving your packaging sustainability:
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Focus on the packaging manufacturing process
Partner with manufacturers who invest in technology and processes that use less water and fewer chemicals to produce your packaging materials. Your partners can also lower their carbon footprint by powering their process with renewable energies like solar power.
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Choose the right materials
go green by using more sustainable packaging materials. This can include using bioplastics, recycled plastics, paperboard cardboard, reducing the amount of packaging you use and avoiding over packaging throughout your supply chain.
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Educate your consumers
on your packaging, prolong the material lifecycle of your packaging by printing sustainability best practices onto it, showing customers how to recycle, dispose of or reuse your packaging. You should also use your packaging to broadcast your sustainability efforts. This lets consumers know that you’re committed to creating a greener future.
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Use the right flexographic printing technology
when you print on your packaging, use eco-friendly and water-based inks and a printing process that doesn’t impact the material lifecycle value of your packaging.
Any easy environmental win is to decrease the waste generated by printing. To help printing companies hit their sustainability targets, we’ve developed the tesa® Twinlock, a reusable flexographic printing technology. Because our sleeves can be used indefinitely, you limit your carbon footprint by using fewer materials and limiting your waste.
Adapting to consumer demand for eco-friendly packaging
While the pandemic has brought hygienic and safe packaging to the forefront of discussion, consumers still deeply care about sustainable packaging. Many buyers care about this issue so much that they’ll stop buying from brands that don’t use eco-friendly packaging.
To meet consumer demand, packaging companies must assess their value chain and move toward sustainable production and creating reusable or recyclable packaging — as many top companies are already doing.
When it comes to flexographic printing technology, the tesa® Twinlock provides an innovative and reusable solution that results in less waste, all without sacrificing printing quality.
But don’t take our word for it. By switching to tesa® Twinlock, Christiansen Print has:
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Eliminated waste equalling to “eight football fields of adhesive tape” per year
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Introduced a simpler prepress process which drove down supply chain costs
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Increased their printing speeds by 20-30%
The future of flexographic printing
For forward-thinking print leaders such as yourself, improving your sustainability is only part of preparing for the future. So what else should you be considering?
Download our free guide to learn how you can future-proof your print business. In it, we explore the state of print and print innovation, as well as the future of flexographic printing.
Interested? Download your free copy by clicking the button below.
