{"id":51370,"date":"2020-11-09T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chitchats.com\/blog\/?p=51370"},"modified":"2021-03-01T18:42:55","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T23:42:55","slug":"sustainable-packaging-making-your-ecommerce-greener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chitchats.com\/blog\/sustainable-packaging-making-your-ecommerce-greener","title":{"rendered":"Sustainable Packaging: Making Your Ecommerce Greener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While ecommerce is an amazing industry, it does have a dark side. The packaging of products can generate a huge amount of waste, especially plastic waste. There’s around 6.8 billion metric tons of plastic waste<\/a> worldwide in our oceans and landfills. On top of that, most of it isn’t biodegradable or recyclable. This waste has major consequences for our health and our natural world, and the problem will only get worse if we don’t shift to more sustainable packaging options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this post, we’re going to discuss why you should use sustainable packaging and what it looks like. We’ll also give you tips for how to reduce the environmental impact of your shipping and go green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why switch to sustainable packaging?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You may be thinking, sure the oceans may have more plastic than fish in them by 2050<\/a>, but why should I make the switch to sustainable packaging? That’s going to make it harder for my business to be profitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great thing about making your business more sustainable is that it can actually be good for your bottom line! Unilever<\/a> found that in 2017 that brands known for sustainability, such as Ben & Jerry\u2019s, grew 30% faster than the rest of their businesses. Customers increasingly prefer brands that make their environmental impact a priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the simplest ways to be sustainable are also just better for your profitability. Using less packaging material is both good for the planet and saves you and your customers money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, many governments are moving towards more regulation concerning plastic waste. The Canadian federal government is planning to reduce plastic waste to zero by 2030.<\/a> Making the change to more sustainable packaging now allows you to get ahead of your competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes packaging sustainable?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So how do you decide on what actually is sustainable? To do that experts recommend looking at the life cycle assessment (LCA)<\/strong> of a product. That essentially means we think about all the effects our product has on the environment from production to landfill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s say we wanted to reduce the amount of fossil fuels that get consumed from transporting our products to our customers. That would mean we would want to reduce the weight of our packaging and the lightest packaging would be plastic mail wrappers. But then we generate more non-recyclable plastic waste! If we’re not careful, our fix in one area may create additional problems in another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have to think about every step of the process when making our decisions on sustainable packaging. That may sound tricky, but there’s a few main points to consider that should make it easy. When making your choice in packaging the Sustainable Packaging Coalition has 8 criteria<\/a>. In simpler terms, sustainable packing should:<\/p>\n\n\n\n