Making your brand more environmentally friendly may be advantageous to your long-term success and your financial bottom line, whether you operate a coffee shop or a cannabis business.

What is the reasoning behind this?

A considerable percentage of today's consumers want to support environmentally conscious companies. In fact, a study shows that 96 percent of consumers would switch brands to support an environmentally responsible company, believing their actions make a big difference in the world.

Self-Regulation and Ethically Oriented Practices

Individual efforts to recycle and be more energy-efficient can positively influence the environment. Still, companies making these efforts as well may have a more significant impact because customers will take notice of this.

You can match your brand's ethics with those of your customers by adding eco-friendly business concepts. Consumers feel that businesses implementing initiatives to protect the environment is very, if not tremendously, essential, according to 81 percent of the study's respondents.

Not Just About Packaging Material

Now, there may be some confusion when it comes to eco-friendly packaging. Some people believe that environmentally friendly packaging must be composed of wood pulp, hemp, organic plant fibers, or bamboo. Don't get me wrong: these alternatives are fantastic.

However, the material used to make your packaging only conveys part of the story.

Learning about what makes packaging choices environmentally friendly begins with segregating and appreciating the different types based on different aspects.

Flexible Packaging vs. Rigid Packaging

When it comes to liquid packaging, many of the materials we use are rigid. 

This includes tin cans, jugs, jars, cartons, buckets, and bottles, and they take up a lot of space even when they've been emptied.

When such materials aren't replenished, repurposed, or reused in some other way, they'll eventually wind up in landfills. And what is the end result? There is a significant amount of air buried in landfills.

In the packaging waste stream, empty space is one of the most common sources of waste per volume.

Just because you're selling wet products doesn't mean you need rigid packaging. Spouted pouch packaging can contain and dispense large amounts of liquid while storing, shipping, and disposing of flat and using 85 percent less plastic than a rigid plastic jar.

You're saving 85 percent of plastic from landfills and a lot of physical space. Go flexible and sell these incredible benefits to a market that wants to know they're making a difference with your cleverly packaged products.

Biodegradable Materials vs. Recyclable Materials

Biodegradable developments have resulted in some particularly unique possibilities that are worth considering as you search for the ideal packaging.

There are new biodegradable plastic jugs, for example, that may potentially disintegrate like any other natural material when exposed to the sun, air, and water.

There's a catch, though. Will your packaging be able to disintegrate in a natural way? What happens when it's suffocated in a landfill, trapped between plastic garbage bags and other non-biodegradable materials?

The discarded package's capacity to decompose is severely hampered by a lack of sunlight, oxygen, water, and stirring (as in a compost pile). The outcome might be a large, rigid jug filled largely with air that sits in a landfill for decades upon decades.

Meanwhile, flexible pouch packaging with add-on spouts is recyclable and perhaps even constructed of recycled materials. Even if the customer does not recycle them, they have been disposed of flat and will take up little room as a waste product.

Carbon Emissions

Lastly, think about the expenses and environmental effects of your packaging throughout the manufacturing, shipping, and storage process. 

Going with choices that are lighter, flatter, and need less energy to create is one of the most significant ways to assist the environment when it comes to wet product packaging. A spouted pouch is especially easier to produce (and uses fewer resources) than a glass or plastic container, and you can transport a lot more of them in the same amount of space.

How many empty shampoo bottles can you transport to your factory on a single truckload? Maybe forty or fifty?

Instead, pack tens of thousands of flat, piled spouted pouches and ship all of them in just one trip, then store them in a compact area. This indicates you've reduced inventory space while simultaneously lowering the number of shipping trips necessary and saved on fuel. That is a significant decrease in your carbon footprint.

Choose Packaging that Serves You Well

Talk to us at Pouch Me to find out which flexible spouted pouch packaging will help your business become more ecologically responsible – and more remarkable on the retail shelves.

- Environmentally Friendly Branded Packaging FAQs -

+ How can you make plastic environmentally friendly alternatives?

Take a look at your current packaging design and strategy and first review what packaging elements you can replace with non-plastic material. These packaging elements should be OK to expose to moisture and other elements and still function well to hold your product without compromising product quality. Some of the lasting plastic alternatives available today include bamboo, wood, natural fiber, and other materials that don't create more load on our landfills as these decompose easily.

If you need the versatility of plastics but must use biodegradable options, consider bio-plastics. These aren't as hardy as real plastic material in terms of longevity and are more expensive but do help create more opportunities for sustainability. These are made of production waste products of corn and vegetables. You can also try mushroom root (mycelium) packaging, which is an excellent alternative to styrofoam.

+ What is the most sustainable form of packaging?

While plastic is a big problem, this typically pertains to single-use plastic that's flimsy and is non-functional after just one or a few uses. However in terms of sustainability based on performance, reusable plastic packaging is seen by brands as traditionally the most sustainable form of packaging.

Sturdy plastic reduces the use of raw materials, has a considerably long life span so people can recycle and use it for a long time, and affords less carbon emissions through efficient transport.

+ How can we reduce waste packaging?

• Use recyclable or reusable packaging and packaging materials. This way you are effectively reducing how much waste ends up in landfills. Anything that is left over becomes reusable storage for your customers.
• For paper packaging, make sure you are buying FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper. By choosing this, you support products that come from sustainably harvested forests which work to provide not just environmental benefits but also social and economic benefits.
• Ditch any unnecessary packaging embellishments and review your packaging to see if you can minimize what you are using right now. Again, this way you are effectively reducing how much waste ends up in landfills.