Sourcing sustainable packing: A guide to improving business sustainability
Improving sustainability practices in your business doesn’t have to be complicated. Deborah Meaden and NESCAFÉ Community Regeneration Lead Robin Sundaram, share their key advice on finding more sustainable packaging, suppliers and deliveries.
Improving the sustainability of your product packaging
Good products deserve good packaging, but researching and sourcing the right materials can be difficult and time consuming. Here are Deborah Meaden and NESCAFÉ expert Robin Sundaram’s key insights on making product packaging more sustainable:
- Use packaging made from one material
- Use online resources
- Tell consumers how to recycle your product and its packaging
Use packaging made from one material
Recycling: Products and packaging made of mixed materials (like a bamboo toothbrush with plastic bristles) are much harder to recycle than those made of all one thing. Try to use one recyclable material like cardboard, paper, glass, or plastic in your packaging to make it more sustainable.
Design packaging out of products: Where possible, try to produce products that don’t need packaging or only require minimal packaging. For example, instead of encasing a product like a toothbrush entirely in plastic, you could choose to cover just the bristles. This would minimise packaging while still keeping the bristles hygienic.
Use online resources
WRAP: is a UK registered charity committed to helping tackle climate change by changing the way things are produced, consumed and disposed of. They have a vast range of resources available on their website for a number of different focus areas, from transforming our current food systems to the production of textiles.1
Pledge to Recycle: Another source to check on your sustainability journey is the Pledge to Recycle website. Their aim is to promote consistent plastic recycling and remove confusion around recycling through education and communication.2 Their website has plenty of resources on current research and guidance regarding how and where to recycle plastics and other materials.
Tell consumers how to recycle your packaging
If your product and packaging can be commonly recycled, make it clear to your consumers how they can do this (e.g. by placing in their home recycling bin). You can explain this through copy on the packaging itself, or a leaflet that arrives with the product highlighting your company’s sustainability efforts. Some products and packaging require more specific ways of being recycled: for example, in the UK flexible plastics need to be returned to supermarket collection points and organisations like Podback offer collection and drop off services to recycle coffee pods.3
Improving your business sustainability
When starting out on your business sustainability journey, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by all the information out there, some of which contradicts itself. Deborah Meaden and NESCAFÉ expert, Robin Sundaram, share their expert advice on improving the sustainability practices of your business:
- Decide on your sustainability priorities
- Share your mission with consumers
- Check suppliers and delivery companies’ sustainability credentials
Decide on your sustainability priorities
Make a list: Write down the sustainability concerns you would like to address within your business. You might want to switch to entirely renewable energy or use responsibly sourced materials to make your products. Whatever your primary sustainability concerns, writing them down will help you make decisions about where to focus your efforts.
Break it into smaller steps: Make your sustainability efforts easier for yourself by breaking them down into smaller goals. If you’re looking to make a product from recycled materials for example, you could begin by sourcing suppliers, or deciding whether to use recycled paper, plastic or even textiles.
Share your mission with consumers
With a purchase: You can use every purchase as an opportunity to let your consumers know you are aiming to become more sustainable in your business. Add your sustainability goals or achievements to the bottom of an email purchase confirmation or a flyer delivered with your products (on recycled paper of course). If your business provides services rather than products, your staff can inform clients or customers about your sustainability efforts or carry a flyer with them to their job sites. This can help customers understand more about your brand and why you feel sustainability is important.
Social media: Another good place to share your mission with consumers is on any social media channels you own for your business. This can also be helpful in attracting new customers or clients who are specifically looking for more sustainable companies to use or purchase from. Making your sustainability efforts part of your brand shows consumers you take it seriously and helps build their trust in you.
Check suppliers and delivery companies’ sustainability credentials
Suppliers: One simple step in your sustainability journey can be to ask your suppliers about their sustainability practices. This can start a chain reaction of companies you work with changing their own practices to become more sustainable too. You can also research suppliers closer to where you do business. If you find a supplier with strong sustainability credentials that’s closer to your business this can help reduce your carbon footprint even further.
Deliveries: If you deliver products to consumers, choosing a delivery company that is up front about its practices can also boost your sustainability credentials. Many delivery companies are beginning to switch to electric delivery vehicles, while others will only deliver within their local area to reduce the miles they need to travel.
