LONDON, United Kingdom — Lightweighting will continue to be the main strategy packaging suppliers and buyers use to lower the impacts of their packaging, and companies are mainly making such changes to cut costs, according to a new survey.
Packaging News' new Packaging and the Environment survey asked packaging suppliers and buyers in the U.K. about actions they've taken to improve the environmental performance of packaging, how well they understand various concepts, what accreditations they feel are important, and more.
Conducted in March, the survey drew responses from 142 people that work on the supply side of packaging and 63 on the customer side.
Regarding steps that have been taken to change packaging, all respondents were asked what they have done in the past 12 months and what they plan to do in the next 12 months.
The top steps suppliers have done in the last year are lightweighting, supply chain optimization, increasing recycled content and increasing recyclable content. The top steps in the coming year mirrored those, but with the addition of performing more carbon footprint measurements of packaging.
The top steps taken by buyers were the same as those by suppliers, in higher percentages. But for the coming 12 months, increasing recycled content took over the top stop from lightweighting, and more buyers than last year plan to conduct carbon footprinting. The item that was chosen by the fewest on both sides was increasing compostable and biodegradable content.
The main driver for all those changes has been cost reduction. That was the driver chosen by more than 60 percent of buyers when asked what is causing customers to request packaging changes and by more than 70 percent of suppliers when asked why they have requested changes.
"This may be a sign of the cost-conscious times in which we are living; or it suggests that packaging's environmental credentials are taken for granted," the report on the survey says. "It could also reinforce what many sceptics on packaging reduction schemes have been saying for some time - that cost reduction and sustainability improvements often go hand in hand."
Following lower costs, buyers said environmental impact was their second highest driver, while suppliers felt that on-shelf differentiation was a more important driver than environmental considerations.
When it comes to sales calls, the most important messages mentioned by both groups were cost and quality, followed by customer service, and then environmental credentials.
Suppliers were also asked what they've done and plan to do at factories. The top actions done in the past year were recycling company waste and investing in low-energy equipment and consumables like lightbulbs. Fewer plan to undertake such actions in the coming year, possibly because they've already started up recycling programs or made purchases of new equipment.
Category:
Sustainable Packaging
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