Sustainability 101: What’s packaging sustainability?
Sustainability 101 is a weblog sequence you could flip to for details about completely different environmental phrases that will come up at work, throughout discussions with pals, and even at your loved ones gatherings.
Whether or not we’re buying grocery objects wrapped in plastic or receiving a house cargo packed in polystyrene peanuts, packaging is a part of our on a regular basis lives. Nonetheless, a lot of it turns into waste after one use.
Based on the Organisation for Financial Co-operation and Improvement (OECD), 31% of plastics produced are for packaging – typically single-use and with a mean six-month lifespan. Plastic is broadly used as an efficient packaging materials, however as waste within the surroundings, it will probably have a unfavorable affect.
Analysis printed within the November 16, 2024, Journal of Hazardous Supplies Advances reveals that that in landfills, plastic can emit toxins and change into a supply of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and in oceans, it will probably break down into microparticles that might disrupt meals chains and contribute to a wide range of well being problems.
Another non-recyclable or non-compostable packaging objects embody foam, aluminum foil with meals residue, and fused elements resembling cardboard hooked up to foam that can’t be simply separated for recycling.
How does this affect customers’ decisions? A 2025 McKinsey & Firm survey reviews that 77 p.c of respondents take into account recyclable packaging “extraordinarily essential” or “crucial,” whereas 62 p.c responded the identical about packaging made out of recycled supplies.
Packaging sustainability: Supplies matter
In a round financial system, industries modify their processes to allow the reuse and regeneration of supplies. The aim is to make merchandise with the smallest environmental affect utilizing the fewest assets doable.
By specializing in supplies, corporations could make their product containers and elements extra sustainable, resembling berry growers utilizing compostable trays or cosmetics producers utilizing refillable containers for post-purchase reuse.
Another methods embody:
- Decreasing or eliminating pointless elements
- Utilizing QR codes to digitize data vs. printed supplies
- Incentivizing shopper recycling with rewards or by offering clear directions on the way to recycle
Utilizing these options may help cut back packaging waste whereas aligning with buyer values. It additionally may help cut back packaging prices, optimize area effectivity, and construct in regulatory compliance.
How Cisco’s technique has developed to assume “contained in the field”
For Cisco, packaging sustainability is the follow of minimizing waste by lowering or eradicating sure supplies — resembling single-use plastic baggage and foam — and changing them with various supplies which can be renewable, recyclable, or each.
In 2019, Cisco developed a set of Round Design Rules for its merchandise throughout 5 classes — one among which is packaging and equipment. Product groups and packaging engineers in our Provide Chain Operation group collaborate on the outset of the design part to craft a bundle that gives the optimum stability of product safety and circularity. A lot of our merchandise now incorporate recyclable fiber-based cushions like FiberFlute®, paper tube cushions, and molded pulp to switch foam. By way of Cisco’s No Paper Initiative, QR codes for digital product data keep away from materials use altogether.
An excellent instance is the Cisco Ceiling Microphone Professional bundle, which is absolutely fiber primarily based. As a substitute of plastic trays, we opted for unbleached molded pulp-fiber trays which can be sturdy sufficient to cushion the delicate unit, but mild sufficient for cost-effective delivery. We additionally swapped out the standard single-use plastic bag with a custom-fit paper sleeve that absolutely encases the unit and shields it from mud and abrasion.
Packaging from legacy merchandise may be modified for circularity as properly, and Cisco’s Catalyst 9300 Enterprise Swap is a main instance.
To exchange foam, we used recycled thermoforms to cushion the chassis — eliminating about 250 metric tonnes of froth yearly — and recycled and recyclable fiber-based retention packs for the ability provide models — avoiding roughly 70 extra metric tonnes per 12 months. To get rid of plastic baggage, we opted for paper flag labels on energy cords, consolidated small components throughout a number of baggage, and swapped out plastic for paper-based envelopes. In fiscal 2025, Cisco utilized these packaging adjustments to the brand new technology Cisco C9350 good switches.
Packaging sustainability: A Round Design Precept
Round Design Rules have remodeled the product and packing design course of at Cisco. Different examples of how we incorporate circularity into our packaging embody:
- Decreasing supplies utilization with a heightened give attention to plastics discount
- Designing containers and packing supplies to be separable and simply recycled at finish of use
- Utilizing post-consumer waste in new packaging components
- Eliminating paper documentation in new product shipments
- Decreasing the cargo of unused equipment by providing our prospects an opt-out possibility in the course of the ordering expertise
- Utilizing multipack options to scale back materials utilization and bundling containers for giant shipments to scale back the variety of packing containers wanted
By utilizing extra environment friendly, renewable, and recyclable supplies, Cisco not solely helps preserve waste out of landfills however reduces prices and saves assets.
Study extra about these initiatives and Cisco’s packaging sustainability objectives within the Cisco Function Reporting Hub.
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