Facts & Findings

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Sustainability in e-commerce packaging: A review

Published:

September 23, 2020

Sílvia Escursell

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7511172/

Sustainability in e-commerce packaging: A review

Key finding

Redesigning the wine bottle

to reduce the environmental impact of packaging

Made from 100% recycled PET, 100% recyclable and 87% lighter than a standard glass bottle. However, as customers associate a glass wine bottle with a higher quality product, the use of a less environmentally costly material has created a barrier to acceptance in the market.

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your internal processes

Whatever systems your packaging fits into, you can take steps to track and ensure that the systems are working properly. If you find they aren’t functioning as well as they could, identify the pain points and work to reduce them. Reliable data is invaluable here.

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Help your customers

change their behaviours and give clear directions

Clear communication to customers about what to do with the packaging after they use it will help to make your chosen packaging system more effective in practice.

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Upstream Innovation

A guide by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation

This is one example of how businesses are innovating and moving towards circularity in their packaging. Globally recognised frameworks and certifications are readily available and can help your business to set the course to improve your packaging.

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Getting out of this Pickle

Step back and ask yourself these questions:

What were the reasons for choosing a certain set of materials, a supplier, or a system? Do the reasons for these decisions still stand, or is there room to move? What aspects of your current packaging are the most environmentally costly? What aspects are the simplest to improve? Are there components in your current packaging that could be removed altogether?

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The success of a refill system

relies on educating customers

"Beauty Kitchen is doing a fabulous job of educating their customers about the importance of plastic packaging reduction and shifting out of single-use packaging. They credit that educational process with the success and the acceptance of this program by their customers.”

Research report

Beauty Kitchen

has designed and implemented an effective packaging refill system

“Beauty Kitchen has developed a really exciting program called “Return, Refill, Repeat”, which is a packaging refill system. They have designed their packaging to support the system, made from aluminium and glass jars and bottles. They're making it possible to move away from single-use packaging and promoting refilling of packaging, which is high up on the hierarchy of sustainable packaging strategies.”