9. The importance of sustainability

9.

The importance of sustainability

Environmental, Sustainable, or Circular. That’s a big issue right now. Let me explain. First, you grasp this as a new trend. It started with consumers’ focusing more on the environment as a value for them to choose, where all companies then started planning on how to be more environmentally friendly. Then, everyone realized the consumer-value of action instead of empty words and how it made them stand out differently from their competitors that hadn’t done anything yet.

Then, Sustainability came along, meaning that everything we use must, as best as we can, be returned to Mother Earth and be CO2-neutral. Companies started to display this in their ads; the use of alternative energy sources for production like solar panels, replanting trees, protecting the worldwide rainforest, etc. They did everything they could do to show that they really cared about our planet, that they avoided unhealthy competition, and were doing things – not only saying things. Now, we enter the next level of demands, getting the world Circular. It’s both the Environmental care and Sustainability value; mix those together and you then close the circle. I hope it will add a lot of knowledge for both suppliers and consumers and become one important differentiator when we make our choice in stores or while e-shopping.

This quick summary has no intention of giving a full overview of the aspects surrounding environmental and sustainable issues. But I will try to pinpoint how and why we react as we (as consumers) do. If you know a bit more than your competition, you can do a bit more. Will every consumer change his or her behavior? Will they accept to pay more for circular packaging, in the mindset of them saving the planet? Each generation and culture have their own different legislation around these topics and it will be very important in the future. It’s a significant external factor to be handled and cared for by every region, segment, and product. It’s probably the most important factor that will change the entire playing field of packaging, concerning when and how the market will develop over time. It’s true that the knowledge and understanding of packaging, both when it comes to protection during transport and the possibility of extending the lifespan of a product, hasn’t reached the whole way through to the consumer yet. When the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency asked people about packaging, more than 50% of the consumers participating in the survey saw packaging in many cases as unnecessary and that we use way too much packaging. Communication about packaging and the evaluation of facts for why we use packaging and when we should use packaging is difficult. Helén Williams, a senior lecturer in Environment and Energy systems at the University of Karlstad in Sweden, shows that if we instead increase the amount of packaging, more portion-sized packages, it will be more environmentally friendly than using large packs. As an example, a new packaging idea about a two-piece bag of salad. You only break the package for a smaller portion at a time. The result is that you can increase the amount of packaging material up to 40% and still be more sustainable. By decreasing our food waste, we need to produce less food and with that less packaging. Cutting out unnecessary production plus transportation, it will provide big environmental benefits for our world and us.

Referring to Smithers Pira: in food packaging, the packaging itself causes on average less than 10% of the carbon footprint of the product. That’s almost equal with transportation. Whereas the largest proportion in general comes from the production of the raw material used to make the product. Despite this relatively tiny footprint, packaging is still extremely important. Why? Because, if it fails to fulfill its primary function, a full 100% of the product will turn into waste.