Weigh The Options

Brand owners must understand which eco-minded packaging enhancements matter most to consumers and the environment.

A product's packaging is the first thing consumers notice when weighing options at the shelf. And these days, the packaging's "green" quotient — the real or perceived measure of reduction in overall environment impact — often competes with general attractiveness as an influencer of buying decisions.

But which efforts on the packaging side really count when it comes to the environment?

And which of these efforts matter most to today's minded consumers?

Easier on the earth

From an environmental-impact standpoint, retailers generally have several options for store brand packaging, notes Kevin Dooley, co-director of the Sustainability Consortium and distinguished professor at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. They could use less packaging material, recycled packaging material and/or recyclable packaging material.

Any type of reuse or reduction can have a positive impact on the earth (as long as product quality is not compromised), says Tim Rose, vice president of strategic innovation initiatives for Schawk, a graphics services and brand point management firm headquartered in Des Plaines, III. But in his view, "no packaging" — achieved through packaging component reduction or the creation of reusable packs — and packaging that increases the usable life of the product top the list.

He notes that MillerCoors eliminated unnecessary fiberboard in its Coors Light and Coors Banquet 12-pack can cases, saving 5.8 million pounds of cardboard in a year. And Mead Johnson Nutrition now sells Enfamil baby formula is a reusable fiberboard container that holds a sealed 24-ounce product pouch.

"Once the pouch is opened, it can be placed in the fiberboard container with the locking plastic lid," Rose explains. "Packaging is eliminated, and still the formula is protected."

The use of less material, or "lightweighting," also benefits the environment by reducing the amount of materials going into landfills, explains Gregory Unruh, Ph.D., director of the Lincoln Center for Ethics at the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Ariz. Lightweighting has been a trend for some time with plastic bottles.

Shel Horowitz, author of Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies To Improve Your Profits and Your Planet, points to Nature's Path Eco Pac packaging (from Nature's Path Foods of Richmond, British Columbia) as a non-bottle example of material downsizing. The bulk bags use significantly less material than traditional bag-in-box cereal packaging.

But even though material downsizing does help reduce the environmental impact, consumers still throw away valuable materials, Unruh says. That's why some companies are changing tactics here. For example, Coca-Cola opened the world's largest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in early 2009, with the lofty goal of recycling and reusing 100 percent of its U.S. bottles and cans.

"It's a sort of closed-loop process — you can keep this going on for a very long time," he says. "It requires some redesign and rethinking, and sometimes it goes against the lightweighting perspective because to recover those bottles, it's important for them to have enough material in them to make the process economical."

Siloam Springs, Ark.-based Allens Inc. relies on steel, which can be recycled over and over, for its canned vegetables, notes Patty Daniels, the company's manager of grades and standards.

"We want more than just our vegetables to be sustainable," she says. "We want to make sure that we are making every effort possible to be sustainable in all areas of production."

Kristin Heist, senior design strategist and sustainability champion for Continuum, a Newton, Mass.-based innovation and design consultancy, also adds another type of reuse to the list of eco-minded packaging efforts.

"A package that can be reused for another purpose and offset an additional purchase is a thoughtful way to limit consumption," she says. "Jelly jars have traditionally been the benchmark for a reusable package. Consumers always seem to find a use for them after they have served the intended purpose."

Heist points to clothing company Patagonia Inc. as a good example. The Ventura, Calif.-based retailer includes a simple graphic on the inside of its shoeboxes, encouraging customers to turn the box inside out and reuse it as an attractive storage container.

Compostable materials (such as those Frito-Lay uses in its new SunChips packaging) are yet another option, Unruh notes. But such materials do not break down in the oxygen-deprived landfill environment, which is where most trash from U.S. consumers still ends up.

Eye on the consumer

For consumers, decisions around packaging sustainability remain complicated, Rose contends. How complicated? Consider Procter & Gamble's August 12 announcement related to the company's plans to use renewable, sustainable plastic derived from sugar cane for select Pantene, Cover Girl and Max Factor products. Consumers read and heard mixed reviews for the move. Some experts applauded the company for using renewable resources, Rose says, while others questioned the use of food stock materials and the decision's potential impact on food prices in emerging countries.

"What is a consumer to believe?" Rose asks. "When they want to purchase a bottle of shampoo or a compact of powder, will they really wade through all of the environmental pros and cons?"

That said, a recent survey performed by BeveragePulse.com (a collaboration between Concept Catalysts Inc. and iModerate Research Technologies) revealed that one-third of consumer respondents believe a high recycling rate is the most important attribute in eco-friendly packaging, Rose notes. Twenty-three percent of respondents point to a high recycled content as the most important attribute, meanwhile, and 20 percent to the use of renewable resources.

"When pressed, they will look for the clearest differentiator," he adds.

Packaging that is 100 percent recyclable — and convenient to recycle — does resonate well with consumers, Daniels says.

Heist agrees.

"We know from our award-winning Colorblind research that consumers feel they are doing the most for the environment when they are recycling," she says. "To this end, any single-sourced material that is easily identifiable and recognizable as recyclable makes consumers feel like they are doing their best. It is when we start using unrecognizable and mixed materials that consumers become confused and do not know what to do with a package when they are done."

Although the Sustainability Consortium's research also verifies widespread consumer acceptance for recycled and recyclable materials, Dooley cautions that consumers could view any material downsizing as a negative.

"Often size is associated with value in consumer products," he says.

Of course, packaging performance weighs heavily into consumer purchase decisions, too. If performance is subpar, a repeat purchase is less likely to occur.

"The innovators are getting good at making the customer experience of the environmentally sustainable packaging as good of an experience as that of the non-sustainable packaging," Unruh notes. "So we're sort of in a transition phase, where companies are learning how to do this much better."

Proceed with caution

No matter which direction retailers choose to take to enhance the overall sustainability of store brand packaging, they'd be wise to avoid some common mistakes. First, don't equate eco-minded with boring and stoic, Heist recommends.

"[You] can make an interesting on-shelf presentation with a form factor and think more holistically about the entire product line presentation," she says. "Simple design cues, carried across an entire product line, can capture consumers."

And don't forget about the total packaging experience — consider usage post-purchase, Heist says.

"Early attempts at developing concentrated detergents were indicative of this [oversight]," she contends. "The packages said 'concentrated' all over them, but the physical structures and user interaction elements and process were all the same. Because of this, consumers felt they had to put the same amount of soap in their loads to be effective."

The laundry detergent example also speaks volumes about the need for better on-pack communication. Horowitz says retailers need to view themselves as consumer educators, especially when it comes to store brand packaging eco-enhancements. But steer clear of vague or misleading claims, which could be viewed as greenwashing.

"Using shelf-talkers, in-store signage, educational programs, etc., they can bring attention to the green brands they feature and to why [they are] important," he says.

And keep in mind that the packaging consumers see at the point of purchase is only part of the big picture, stresses Karen Proctor, professor of packaging science at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y. Secondary and tertiary packaging, too, plays an important role. For example, Proctor says, if a brand owner opts for a refill strategy for a dish soap, it might develop a flexible pouch to sell with the rigid bottle. Even if the flexible pouch used 75 percent less material, the brand owner would need 80 percent more material within the shipping containers because flexible pouches cannot be stacked and, therefore, would require secondary packaging for support.

"In addition, you would have potentially more product damage in the flexible packaging format," she says. "So is this refill strategy the better eco-packaging decision?"

Finally, don't miss the opportunity to truly educate consumers, especially when the packaging pushes a rather unfamiliar concept. Rose suggests that Frito Lay missed the boat here in introducing its compostable SunChips packaging.

The company did not communicate the pros and cons of compostable packaging when they launched the pack, he says. It neglected to point out the United States' lack of infrastructure for composting — and failed to mention it hoped the bag would be the impetus to further develop that infrastructure.

"Had they acknowledged that they were trying to support the bioplastics market with a volume that would enable prices to come down, what would the conversation be?" Rose asks. "With an environmentally thoughtful dialogue going on, would anyone be complaining about noisy bags?"

*According to an Aug. 18 article in The Wall Street Journal, an Air Force pilot used a RadioShack sound meter to measure the noise the bags produced when squeezed. The result? 95 decibels, which Galen Carol Audio of San Antonio says is akin to a subway train within 200 feet.

Don't miss the opportunity to truly educate consumers, especially when the packaging pushes a rather unfamiliar concept.