Sustainable packaging: eco-friendly and unbreakable

Sustainability is steadily gaining in importance for consumers. They want ethically and ecologically impeccable products, packaged in a resource-conserving manner that nevertheless ensures their perfect condition when purchased. This is a major challenge to packaging producers, as the industry wants to save on materials without compromising the stability of the packaging in any way.

The Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group Unilever, owner of international brands such as Domestos household cleaner and Dove soap, is pursuing an ambitious strategy. It plans to double its worldwide sales from the current 40 billion euros by 2020, and simultaneously to halve its carbon dioxide emissions by improving efficiency in packaging and production. Moreover, Unilever is assuming greater social responsibility. By 2020, for instance, it aims to have integrated half a million small farmers and traders in developing countries into its supply chain. “We intend to be a sustainable company in every sense of the word,” says Unilever CEO Paul Polman.

For many consumers, sustainability has become an important purchasing criterion. Buyers who formerly seldom enquired about origin, type of production and packaging now put a high priority on ecologically and morally ‘clean’ goods. US market analyst Pike Research estimates that global sales with sustainable packaging will almost double between 2009 and 2014, from 88 to 170 billion dollars. “The environmental awareness of consumers has significantly increased as a consequence of the climate debate,” explains Pike Research President Clint Wheelock.

Alongside climate protection, social aspects play an increasing role. Modern consumers want to lead a more healthy life, and therefore value natural food products that are absolutely safely packaged and have an unadulterated taste. For this client group, it is a matter of growing importance that product manufacturers demonstrate social engagement and offer ‘fair trade’ goods. “We are seeing a trend towards ethical consumerism,” declares analyst Jens Lönneker of the Cologne market research company Rheingold. He has observed that fair trade is firmly established among LOHAS (consumers who aspire to a Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability). Now it is spreading to ‘18-plussers’, who prefer fair trade beer or lemonade in chic bottles to conventional soft drinks or lager.

For the industry, the sustainability trend is both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand it has to develop new products and campaigns, incurring high costs. On the other hand, the increasing demand for sustainable products promises economic growth. This is why the financially strongest big companies such as Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and Unilever pursue comprehensive sustainability strategies. They support environmental, nature and aid organisations or provide development aid themselves. They also invest in more efficient production lines and packaging. “We will cut our materials consumption by a third by 2020,” promises Polman.

The packaging manufacturers help the industry to reduce their ecological footprint. They design new packagings and develop the associated production processes. This is no easy task. Raw material consumption needs to be reduced by using thinner and smaller amounts of resource-intensive materials, but this must not compromise the integrity and stability of the packaging. “The top priority is protection of the packaging contents,” says Stefan Glimm, Managing Director of the German aluminium industry association GDA (Gesamtverband der Aluminiumindustrie). There is a good reason for this. According to the European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment (EUROPEN), the value of the resources input into and held in food products is much higher than the value of the packaging that protects these products. Product losses resulting from inadequate packaging therefore account for more carbon dioxide emissions than are saved by eliminating surplus packaging. In developing countries, food losses are a big problem. According to EUROPEN, 40% of the goods in the supply chain are lost. Better protection of products in these countries could therefore considerably ease the burden on the environment.

At interpack, from 12-18 May 2011, an event held in Germany for the worldwide packaging sector, food protection will also be one of the key themes. The special exhibition SAVE FOOD, organised together with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, shows how the individual elements in the value chain can make a contribution, in terms of packaging, logistics and transport, to cutting worldwide food waste.