Token “greenwashing” is not enough; the packaging design industry is stepping up to the plate and embracing sustainability as the new wave in corporate environmental consciousness.

‘Green is Dead’ is the new shock caption that has been doing the rounds in www-land and does have the desired effect of stirring indignation and guilt as you read it. But we’re only joshing with you, dear reader, the good news is that the greenwashing bandwagon that many companies have hopped on in the last five or so years trying to snare your good opinion and dollars has not been enough and we the people have demanded a more serious commitment.

Green is Dead, Long Live Green.

The classic role of packaging is to “Protect, Inform, and Sell” but now it is expected that packaging must do all that, but with minimal eco-impact.

Consumers are no longer impressed by the promise that some small amount of their dollars will be put to buying green energy or other token gestures. Being ‘Green!’ just isn’t enough, the buyer is looking to hard evidence of a company’s long-term commitment to sustainability and it’s the box on the shelf they are staring at.

American retail juggernaut, Walmart, leading the charge in 2006 by implementing the Walmart Scorecard initiative and the E.U. has established a Packaging Directive in recent years in an attempt to provide guidelines for companies and nations to deliver results; sustainability is now an integral part of today’s global competitive market.

And sustainability is…?

To break down the lingo for you, sustainability is concerned with minimizing the carbon footprint of every step of the packaging’s lifecycle (from raw material to production to delivery to waste disposal.) As environmentalism moves away from being the domain of the tree-hugging hippy fringe to being a moral imperative for all thinking people (thank you, Al Gore) companies will be expected to demonstrate the environmental impact of their package designs.

The Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) will hold a National Technical Forum alongside AUSPACK in June this year and will be addressing sustainability as one of several key ‘mega’ trends within the packaging industry. They admit that “Packaging sustainability is a complex, many-faceted subject where a well-meaning single-issue focus could do more harm than good.”

Dr Karli Verghese, Manager Sustainable Products and Packaging Centre for Design RMIT University agrees, “You can’t undertake one aspect, such as recycling, in isolation from the others because they are too interlinked.” Dr Verghese says a holistic approach is the way to achieve sustainability in package design and that it requires attention from the bottom up. “Sustainability must be the overarching principle to work towards. There must also be policy direction and systems put in place that provide the tools for decisions to be made effectively at design concept stage.”

Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box.

Increasingly the onus will no longer rest only on the big guys like Tescos and Walmart, policy and legislation with require all companies big and small to give these issues some thought. While it’s good and well to use sexy, textured recycled paper, for many smaller companies the task of figuring out how big their carbon footprint may be, seems daunting. Luckily Aussie technology might have the solution.

The Packaging Impact Quick Evaluation Tool (PIQET) rapidly evaluates environmental impacts of packaging systems throughout the life cycle for companies and is already being used by brand owner companies and retailers as well as packaging manufacturers and suppliers to assess their practices.
PIQET was developed by RMIT’s Centre for Design with SPA (the Sustainable Packaging Alliance) in Melbourne a not-for-profit alliance dedicated to the development and dissemination of sustainable packaging. Partnered by Cadbury Schweppes, Lion Nathan, Nestle Australia, MasterFoods Australia and Simplot Australia, most of these companies have implemented the use of the PIQET technology at every stage of the design process.

Article by Miss Pigelle

Tags: Australian Institute of Packaging, carbon footprint, environmental consciousness, environmental impact, greenwashing, packaging design