Score Points with Customers by Switching to Eco Friendly Packaging

We know talk a lot about our eco-friendly packaging options and rightly so in our opinion – we’re proud of our innovative product range and knowing that we’re protecting the environment. Eco-protection has been a big topic for many years and continues to grow, so we’re keen to raise awareness both for our customer base and also their end users – after all, they are the ones that ultimately will dispose or reuse the packaging.

Communication is a big factor in raising awareness of environmental considerations, and bigging up your eco-credentials can score points above your competitors when it comes to influencing purchasers. Many people want reassurance that not only are their products eco-friendly, but the packaging it will arrive in is as well, so it’s important to make this clear from the start.

Packaging symbols

Placing clear, recognisable symbols on your packaging is a good way to communicate what is and isn’t recyclable, or compostable. You can see on our cardboard boxes we already print the following symbols:

In addition, you can ask us to customise your packaging to include your logo as well as any eco-credentials you wish to highlight; for example, recyclable, biodegradable or compostable.

• Our Recycle-Air liner does already come with the recyclable logo as part of the logo, which is printed on the liner as standard.
• All of our ice packs come with our logo and the LDPE 4 label, which shows the product is made of low-density polyethylene or LDPE.

Spreading the Word

Make a big deal out of switching to eco-friendly packaging on your website, in your newsletters and on your social media channels. If it’s a big change, get a press release sent out. People are interested and actually warm towards companies who make the effort to protect the world around them.

• McDonalds have been criticised in the past for the amount of plastic waste produced in their product range, as well as their recycling and waste management methods, but their pledge to move towards eco-friendly packaging, products and waste management processes by 2025 has been met with a largely positive reception, which has gone a long way to restoring consumer confidence in the brand. This pledge was rolled out across PR channels, social channels, on their website and also by a dedicated marketing campaign to showcase fashion accessories made out of the new packaging.
• Walkers Crisps new recycling scheme (announced across a number of major news channels, the Walkers website and social media) has gone a long way to appease irate campaigners who were frustrated with the number of crisp packets in landfill and littering our streets, as up until December 2018, there way no clear way to recycle these given that they are not accepted by the majority of recycling plants. Over 8,500 collection points have signed up (as of March 2019) for people to deposit their used crisp packets that will then be sent back to Walkers for proper recycling, and Walkers have reported that more than half a million packets have been sent in. again, This has generated much needed positive PR for the brand, which was under fire only last year for it’s previous response to make all its packaging 100% recyclable, compostable or biodegradable by 2025, without addressing the current landfill issue.
• Big high street chain M&S announced in January that they are launching a new initiative for customers to return all non-recyclable plastic packaging, which will then be recycled into store fittings, furniture and playground equipment for schools. Given that M&S have long been at the forefront of the plastics debate and have previously announced their long term plastic reduction plan, this PR is not necessarily as critical to their success as with other brands, but does certainly keep them in a positive light with the nation.

Email Signatures

Many people overlook their email signature as a valuable way to spread the word, but you shouldn’t, especially if you send a lot of emails to people outside your organisation. Whilst they do tend to be quite uniform with content, they can be a great addition to your options for showcasing your eco-credentials, even if it’s just a one-liner about how you’re working with green materials to protect our world.