5 steps to go green with packaging
Want to improve your company’s environmental footprint? One of the first and most important steps is to review your packaging. Without stress or pressure, improve your impact on the planet by switching to eco-friendly packaging. Do you want to take this step? Discover the 5 steps to go green!
Going green is no longer an option for companies. In order to continue to attract customers today, it is essential to review one’s work ethic and adopt a strong and visible ecological conscience. This includes decisions that change a company’s habits.
But to do this step by step without necessarily spending a lot of money, there are simple, democratic and real alternatives such as rethinking your packaging.
What is sustainable packaging?
Sustainable packaging is first and foremost packaging, which is a set of elements designed to present, protect and transport a product. But for this packaging to qualify for the eco-card, it must prove that it has been created with the aim of minimizing its impact on the environment at all stages of its life cycle.
To even better understand this, here are some of the criteria surrounding sustainable packaging:
- Sustainable packaging is healthy for people throughout its life cycle
- Sustainable packaging is extracted, manufactured, transported and recycled using renewable energy
- Sustainable packaging is physically designed to minimize the use of materials and energy.
What are the stages of sustainable packaging?
Want to go green? We’ve outlined the key steps to making the transition smoothly:
- Step 1: Opt for a gradual transition
Whether you have a single flagship product or thousands of derivatives in stock, it is advisable never to change anything completely. To avoid upsetting your customers or employees, we always advise you to test eco-packaging before making huge orders. These tests will ensure that the packaging is strong enough and adapted to your products.
- Step 2: Ask for samples of the packaging
Before you start large-scale production of your new packaging, you can always ask for samples of existing designs from a company. At XMP, we already have many pre-formatted packages in various materials that will allow you to get a feel for your future packaging. By receiving these samples, you can already test how you will package your products in the future and rethink your presentation and transport. It will also allow you to rethink your budget and your costs related to the transport and stock of your products. .
- Step 3: Rethink your graphic and visual identity
It may seem trivial, but changing your packaging often means changing other strong elements of your branding. Your old logo may not look as good on plastic as it does on a recycled cardboard box. That’s why we encourage our clients to rethink their graphic and visual identity according to the new packaging materials they have chosen.
In addition to the purely functional part, a redesign of the visual identity coupled with the creation of sustainable packaging can have a stronger impact in the customer’s minds who will see your ecological turn more clearly. This is a strong message you send to both customers and competitors.
- Step 4: Adjust your prices
Opting for new packaging often means changing your bill. While not necessarily more expensive, sustainable packaging is simply priced differently from conventional packaging. If you want to make the switch to sustainable packaging with peace of mind, we recommend that you do a budget analysis and cost projection to see if your product’s selling price is still legitimate.
If you can absorb the cost of the new packaging without losing your margins, then you don’t need to change anything. But if the cost is higher, it may be worthwhile for you to re-price your products accordingly.
- Step 5: Promote your sustainable packaging
Today, studies show that the recyclability, durability and biodegradability of packaging are important factors in the purchase decision of more than half of consumers. The ecological transition is therefore an unstoppable sales argument on which it is important to communicate.
Without getting into greenwashing, it is advisable to highlight all the steps you are taking in the right direction in terms of ecology. In a modest and realistic way, you can communicate on your change of packaging in favor of more ecological and therefore environmentally friendly materials.
