INNOVATION | sustainability

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s first principle — design out waste and pollution — notes that ~80% of a product’s environmental impact and its fitness for the circular economy are primarily determined during the design phase.

In our previous eBook, “Unwrapping Circularity: The Power of Design for Environment in Paperboard Packaging Design“, we discussed how integrating Design for Environment (DfE) principles into product design can reduce packaging’s lifecycle environmental impacts and improve circularity.

Our framework has now been named “Better by Design” (BbD) to better support our Better Packaging goals, as it covers more than the external DfE methodology.

In this latest eBook, we present how our BbD framework ensures our design decisions support our Driving Circularity goal, which requires each new product innovation to demonstrate at least one circularity, functionality and convenience positive differentiator compared to the incumbent packaging.

We consider the functionality of the packaging from the perspective of the brand owners and retailers, where the right packaging must meet operational requirements, improve performance, and reduce waste and the impact across the value chain.

We consider packaging convenience to improve the user experience and product protection, driven by consumer insights. The acceptance of the pack on the market is key to making sure it has a more beneficial impact for the planet vs. the current solutions at scale.

Finally, we consider options that lead to maximized circularity, carefully choosing their composition and design, as well as maximizing their compatibility with circular end of life.

This eBook also illustrates how we apply the BbD framework to our ProducePack™ Punnet tray.