If you want your business to embrace more eco-friendly practices, it’s time to take a look at your product packaging. While this seemingly small part of your operations looks like it doesn’t use many resources, it has the potential to be one of the largest waste-producing departments of your business.
When you make your product packaging more environmentally friendly, you not only reduce waste but also lower the consumption of precious natural resources. This can lessen the burden on the planet and mitigate the risks of climate change.
To start this process, here’s how you can make eco-friendly choices in product packaging.
Review your current packaging
While learning how to make your business go green, you need to take a deep dive into your existing processes and see how they hold up to sustainability standards. This approach also applies to product packaging, where reviewing your current materials, design, and resource management can go a long way toward making your packaging more environmentally friendly. This helps you find existing bottlenecks in different departments as well as new ways to improve your operations.
Cut down on plastic packaging
If you are a big proponent of stopping the use of plastic straws and bags, you may already know how this non-biodegradable material harms the environment and the Earth’s population. By cutting down on plastic materials in your packaging, you can renew your commitment to preserving the planet. But this doesn’t mean that you compromise on packaging quality: By continuing to uphold standards like accelerated aging testing, you can find a balance between quality and sustainability.
Switch to bamboo packaging
In case you haven’t heard about bamboo use in product packaging, it is quickly becoming one of the most popular packaging materials for businesses. It’s because bamboo is a wood-like type of grass that requires little to no water and maintenance to grow, while also having a fast growth rate. This lets you preserve forests around the world. It’s also why bamboo products have become one of the top online business ideas in the past few years.
Introduce returnable packaging programs
While even a business as big as Google sets product packaging goals to become more environmentally friendly, the path to this destination is not the same for everyone. Where initiatives like bamboo packaging may work for some businesses, you might need to turn to returnable packaging to get better results. By telling your audience to return their packaging after use, you can prevent the waste of materials. You can spread the word about these programs with tools like a digital marketing platform.
Make Your packaging repurposable
You can also design your packaging to be reusable. If you make this type of packaging, you don’t need your customers to return it. Instead, you can just encourage them to repurpose it in their own way. For example, if you use a wooden box as candy packaging, your customers could use it to store food items of their own. You may need to determine how it impacts your shipping and delivery methods, but the benefits make it worth the effort.
Turn to compostable materials
Whether you garden or not, you might be delighted to know that compostable materials are considered another essential sustainable packaging material. These packaging products break down organic matter and make good fertilizers for home and community gardens. You can find a variety of compostable packaging on the market. But similar to using a manufacturing management platform for product quality, you need to make sure that this packaging is sturdy enough to preserve your products.
Create a detailed, sustainable plan
Once again, while you can take inspiration from these sustainable packaging suggestions, you need to take a hard look at your business, budget, and industry to decide what’s the best approach for your business. With tools like project management software, you can collaborate with key members of your team to discover the most suitable ways for your business to make its packaging more sustainable. This can help you achieve your eco-friendly commitments while taking care of all relevant factors.
These suggestions can help you design sustainable product packaging in a way that suits your business the most. This way, you can turn your venture into a more environmentally friendly organization without stretching yourself thin.