Modern consumers are now becoming more conscious of their shopping habits. Today, they’re not only looking for eco-friendly and green products, but they’re also concerned about sustainable practices across the board, including packaging.
Did you know that millions of items are shipped from businesses every day in the US alone? And the way that these purchased items are packaged and shipped has a major impact on Mother Earth—and customers are taking note.
So, how do you start your sustainable product packaging initiatives? Here are some tips to consider:
1. Partner With A Local Sustainable Manufacturer
Whether you’re just starting to offer sustainable product packaging and don’t know where to start or looking for help to accommodate the bulk of your packaging, finding and partnering with a sustainable packaging manufacturer is a smart move.
At its core, you’d want to partner with a packaging manufacturer using sustainable packaging materials. However, it’s best to find a manufacturer who’s not only sustainable in the material they use, but also in their own practices.
Thus, it’s important to look for a manufacturer that practices sustainability in a variety of ways, including optimizing machinery, reducing water or power use, or having its own recycling program.
In addition, you should also consider finding and partnering with local suppliers. Even if you find the perfect manufacturer with sustainable practices in all their processes, if they’re based on the opposite of the world, the eco-friendly benefits of using their sustainable packaging are easily negated since it has to travel from overseas to reach your business. This negative impact is further compounded if your packaged products must travel back to the country of origin of the packaging.
You can mitigate this by partnering with a local packaging supplier. For instance, if you’re an entrepreneur from South Wales or surrounding areas, it’s more sustainable to find and partner with reputable local packaging suppliers like Packaging World instead of choosing a supplier from Asia even if it seems a lot cheaper. If you want to learn more, you can visit their website at www.packagingworld.co.uk.
Just by choosing the right supplier, you can significantly reduce your business’s carbon footprint and help cut the negative impacts caused by long-distance shipping.
2. Determine The Needs Of Your Products
As you look for the right partner, you also want to consider the product itself. By having a better understanding of your products, you can choose the right packaging that can fully protect them during shipment.
Do you need packaging for fragile items? Do you only need something compact and small for accessories and trinkets? Maybe you need to pack something tall? By assessing your products, you’ll have a clearer idea of what you need. So, consider making a list of essential characteristics of your products. Refer to this list during your discussions with your packaging supplier so you can find the right packaging material.
3. Consider Custom-Sized Packaging And Boxes
Most businesses use filling materials between the box and their product to keep the product in place. However, using oversized boxes for packaging your products and having filling materials creates unnecessary packaging waste while throwing away a lot of money.
The bigger the unused space, the less efficient your distribution becomes. It increases your transportation carbon footprint and shipping costs since fewer packages fit in the shipping containers.
Thus, it’s more sensible to keep your packaging and shipping box as compact as possible. If you can, it’s best to get custom packaging. This way, the product fits precisely in the box and there’s less empty space. Not only that, but customized packaging can also help in your branding efforts.
4. Opt For Reusable Packaging
Reusable or multi-use packaging is making waves in the packaging sector. After all, it’s a more sustainable approach than single-use packaging, helping conserve non-renewable resources.
For instance, if you’re selling cat shampoo, you can introduce reusable and refillable stainless-steel bottles. This drastically reduces your business’s environmental impact by reducing your plastic waste. It also helps reduce your packaging waste by shipping refills in more sustainable and compact packaging that uses fewer materials.
And it doesn’t have to stop there—you can also use reusable shipping materials to further reduce your business’s carbon footprint. For instance, you can design the box that came with the cat shampoo to double as a new cat toy storage. Despite being such a simple idea, you can turn a one-time-use shipping box into something more functional that increases its life cycle.
Takeaway
Serious entrepreneurs can no longer ignore sustainable packaging if they want to make a good impression and thrive in this business world. Sustainable packaging has shifted from a ‘nice-to-have feature’ to a ‘must-have practice’ that’ll help your brand to stand out while making a significant difference to the world.
