In today’s society, packaging must meet both essential product requirements and specific environmental objectives.

Sustainable packaging is one of the most important constituents of the food product or non-food product because a well-packed product can be a guarantee of consumer protection. The package type is a communication instrument between businesses and final consumers and it is capable of attracting consumer’s attention. However, as a result of the new directions for environmental protection, it not only has to protect the products but must also be environmentally friendly.

In today’s society, packaging must meet both essential product requirements and specific environmental objectives. The packaging has four different marketing functions. First, it contains and protects the product; second, the packaging’s role is to promote the product. It also helps consumers to use the product and, lastly, packaging facilitates recycling and decrease environmental damage. Eco-packaging must have benefits for the consumer, be safe and healthy for the individual and the community throughout its life cycle, be market-efficient and cost-effective; be obtained, produced, transported, and recycled via sources of renewable energy, as well as maximizing the use of renewable or recyclable materials; utilize clean production technologies and best practices; can be designed to optimize the materials and energy used, and can be effectively recovered and reused in numerous production cycles. Sustainable packaging is recyclable and safe for people and the environment, lessening our ecological footprint and environmental impact. We all are proud of becoming greener these days.

The world population grows, the global economy develops, and both damage the natural resources of our planet. Consumers demand eco-friendly products, brands turn to green marketing, and everyone craves sustainable packaging. The problem is, this concept goes far beyond reusability and recycling. While a product that’s sustainably packed carries a positive connotation, brands willing to grip the trend need to take a step further and focus on its specific criteria and overall philosophy. 

Sustainable packaging

A decade ago, experts would call packaging “sustainable” if it met five criteria: removable, reductive, recyclable, renewable, and reusable. Later the list was shortened to the commonly-known three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle – but also added a new concept: rethink. This was about encouraging brands to strive for more sustainable options. Today, sustainable packaging refers to a brand’s overall sustainability and its environmental impact. While packaging standards remain different at different organizations such as SPC, ISO, or CEN, savvy brands consider them and focus on the entire life cycle of a package. Today, brands continue to search for new, more sustainable materials. Eco-friendly packaging is another way to demonstrate your care for the environment and listen to your customers’ wants. They stand for conscious consumption and understand the benefits it brings on a global scale. These benefits include a smaller carbon footprint, freedom of allergens and toxins, more storage and space, and overall reduced usage of resources. For businesses, it means lower manufacturing and shipping costs in the long run as well as growth in sales given that consumers are ready to pay more for sustainable products. For many brands, sustainable packaging still translates to “recyclable,” and they don’t understand where all that plastic goes nor how it’s been recycled into reusable and biodegradable products. However, consumers want the story behind a product. So it’s worth looking at the entire lifecycle of a product, its packaging materials, and processes behind its recycling. For brands willing to reduce their ecological footprint, it’s not about going green or sustainable anymore. It’s about striving for sustainability. Studies show that the environmental impacts of packaging are as important as that of the food they contain (Grau, 2015). In addition, it is commonly said that the most significant task of the package is to protect the product, so it is important to know the packaging design process in order to make the main function of it less harmful to the environment. Then the entire product-package combination life cycle is taken into account. The emphasis should be on the prevention of food losses, as well as simply protecting it, in packaging design as an important environmental criterion. Consideration of the properties of the package and of the product itself when designing the final enclosure will lead to a better final result, with lower product losses and environmental impacts. By using different evaluation methods in the diversified stages of packaging design, the sustainability of the package can be improved, since the objective is to integrate sustainability aspects at all stages with firmness in the design process, a preponderant element in the perception of consumers of its products. Due to a growing appreciation of sustainability as a whole, food packaging technology is continuously evolving. Proof of this is active packaging, which proves to be an innovative approach to improving the shelf life of food, improving its quality, safety and integrity.

Consumer attitude-behavior gap

Some scientists consider that there is an ‘attitude-behavior gap’ so that although 30% of consumers demand to be very interested in the environment, this does not translate into green purchase behavior. Studies in various countries report modest correlations through environmental attitudes and self-reported ecological behaviors. It means that consumer positive attitude regarding green products does not always conclude into action. It is essential to inspect why environmental attitudes have a poor influence on consumer green purchase behavior. Among the factors that can influence, can be mentioned price and availability of the eco-packaging, and social influences among others that lead to the discrepancy between consumer attitude and purchase behavior. In today’s market, the price point is such a powerful influence that environmental friendliness is something consumers may not consider when purchasing a product. Two obstacles to being a good ecological citizen can be defined. The first is price-related, and the customers are aware of the responsible procurement costs. These costs may include the product price, the time spent on finding the product, and the distance travelled to purchase the product. The second is the fact that consumers report having difficulties in finding information concerning the product packaging. Without a doubt, consumers are becoming more and more demanding. A good number of consumers expect companies to already participate in principles that better the environment. In fact, according to the Perception Research Services (PRS), more than 80% of consumers across the U.S., U.K., China, and Germany believe it is the manufacturers’ responsibility and expect manufacturers to produce sustainable packaging, without demanding consumers to pay for the cost of the production. Fortunately, there is also a considerable number of consumers that realize sustainable packaging is the responsibility of both the consumer and the manufacturer. If you don’t demand something better, companies are unlikely to make improvements. Sustainable packaging is the development and use of packaging which results in improved sustainability. This involves increased use of life cycle inventory (LCI) and life cycle assessment (LCA) to help guide the use of packaging which reduces the environmental impact and ecological footprint. It includes a look at the whole of the supply chain: from basic function, to marketing, and then through to end of life (LCA) and rebirth. Additionally, an eco-cost to value ratio can be useful. The goals are to improve the long-term viability and quality of life for humans and the longevity of natural ecosystems. Sustainable packaging must meet the functional and economic needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability is not necessarily an end state but is a continuing process of improvement. Sustainable packaging is a relatively new addition to the environmental considerations for packaging (see Packaging and labelling). It requires more analysis and documentation to look at the package design, choice of materials, processing, and life-cycle. This is not just the vague “green movement” that many businesses and companies have been trying to include over the past years. Companies implementing eco-friendly actions are reducing their carbon footprint, using more recycled materials and reusing more package components. Sustainable packaging refers to the sourcing, development, and use of packaging solutions that have minimal environmental impact and footprint. Sustainability can mean different things to different people. To many, the common forms of sustainability (or at least those recognized by consumers) are recyclable, compostable or biodegradable packaging. Whilst these are all valid forms of sustainable packaging, it is also possible to justify the use of returnable and reusable packaging – largely made out of plastics – as sustainable too. This can be through their reuse minimizing the overall volumes of packaging required, minimizing damage (and the environmental impact of remanufacturing and damaged products going to landfill) and even reduced bulk / volume and weight, minimizing carbon from increased transit. In essence, there are numerous ways packaging can be made more sustainable through substantially reducing environmental impact and the overall ecological footprint. Even knowing the options available to your business, there may still be some inertia with regards to switching to truly sustainable packaging. Common fears surround performance, costs, availability and compatibility with existing processes and systems. However, there are a number of significant benefits of switching to sustainable packaging. More and more companies are taking the additional time needed to design their packaging for recyclability so that the current recycling infrastructure can properly process these items and the raw material can be used to manufacture new products. This trend will continue to be successful but it takes diligence and collaboration from companies to follow industry guidelines and protocols to ensure their products can be recycled in the current infrastructure. There are constantly new products being added to the marketplace, some of which haven’t been tested for recyclability. Very small sized items and multi-material packages (ones that contain plastic and metal, or different types of plastic in one package) can fall into this camp of being more difficult to recycle. Some good examples of sustainable packaging include light weight Packaging, cardboard, reusable Container, biomaterials etc.

The aim of this study was to gain more insight in the perception of consumers regarding sustainable packaging. Results show respondents distinguish packaging predominantly on convenience and use, package type and sustainability respectively. Sustainability attributes displays environmental friendliness as the most important theme within sustainability, followed by packaging amount, recyclability, re-usability and biodegradability respectively. According to the results, sustainability is important to consumers as it came up as the third most named theme, right behind package type and convenience and use.

Packaging has ever since its beginning evolved together with the development of human civilization. Over the last years, there is a growing development of materials for packaging products, mostly due to high demands for product safety and environmental influence and the ecological question prompted by packaging waste is becoming more and more serious. By regulation or by manufacturer, retailer or consumer pressure, the demand for sustainable packaging solutions is becoming a fact of life. Packagers will need to learn how to deal with demands for sustainable packaging in the same way as they have had to deal with all the other commercial difficulties that have hit this most competitive of industries.

Written by – Dnyaneshwar Bhosale (Student PVG COET) under guidance of Prof Swati V Nahar (Assistant Professor PVG COET)