In today’s packaging landscape, sustainability matters more than ever. And it’s not just important to consumers; business leaders and legislators alike are prioritizing environmentally friendly packaging. However, sustainability gets a lot more tricky when it comes at the expense of packaging’s cost or ability to protect your product.
Luckily, there’s a clear-cut way to achieve all three goals: Lowering excess packaging material. Packaging material reduction — the practice of eliminating unnecessary material from your packaging — can help you better protect your product, the environment and your bottom line. Here’s how to get started with this packaging strategy.
How Excess Packaging Material Impacts Sustainability
It’s no secret that consumer preference is coalescing around sustainability. But sustainability isn’t just about the material itself, although that is one important element. How much material you’re using also impacts your packaging footprint.
At some point, we’ve all received a large ecommerce package with only a tiny item inside. Typically, that small product will be floating in a sea of void fill. Not surprisingly, there are entire Reddit threads devoted to customers frustrated by the small item, big box situation. But the drawbacks of too much packaging material extend beyond poor consumer sentiment. This practice can increase your packaging footprint, material waste and the costs of that unnecessary material. It can also put you at risk for a higher return rate stemming from product damage. All of these factor into your overall packaging sustainability.
Increases Your Packaging Footprint
Using more packaging material than necessary drives up material costs and, due to dimensional weight-based calculations, can also increase your shipping spend. Another potential casualty of excess packaging materials is transportation emissions.
Simply downsizing packaging may not always result in lower emissions, as weight also plays a significant role. However, the efforts to minimize packaging size is still valid to achieve the best volume-weight balance and optimize transportation emissions associated with your packaging.
Increases Waste and Material Costs
When packaging is too large for the item inside, a common go-to strategy is to fill the extra space with void fill. While in many cases void fill is a technical requirement, it is worth exploring all options to reduce or even eliminate it when possible, for the sake of sustainability and customer satisfaction.
If avoiding void fill is not suitable for the product, choosing paper fillers could be a great option that is not only cost-effective, but also improves customer perception for its sustainability. Beyond void fill, there’s also another source of waste when your packaging is mis-sized: the material used in your container and protective packaging.
Increases Unnecessary Returns
When products have more room to shift during the transport and delivery process, it increases the likelihood of product damage. And in most cases, void fill isn’t enough to truly protect a product. With the higher risk of product damage comes the risk of more returns. Shipping back damaged products — and then shipping out replacements — doesn’t just jeopardize the customer experience and your profit margins. It also significantly increases transportation emissions. According to some estimates, global ecommerce returns generate more than 20 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year. While some returns stem from customer preferences, others are due to product damage that can be mostly avoided with high-performing packaging.
The Value (and Challenges) of Reducing Your Packaging Material Waste
Using less material is a proven strategy for protecting both your products and the environment. It can also contribute to a stronger bottom line. However, reducing packaging material waste can often feel easier said than done — especially when you’re busy running a business.
Today’s automation tools are incredibly advanced, and some are even equipped to “right-size” packaging. However, this equipment can require a large capital investment. Another solution is redesigning your packaging to eliminate excess materials, but this process can slow time to market and drives up costs if you lack specialized engineering expertise. Without the right strategic approach, a packaging redesign can also require you to overhaul your existing processes and automation. Brands that choose to source less-wasteful packaging can also run into barriers. Without long-standing relationships in the packaging industry, it can be challenging to find the optimal packaging materials and ensure a sufficient, timely supply.
How the Right Partner Can Help You Reduce the Amount of Material in Your Packaging
Given the value of reducing packaging waste — and the challenges of doing it yourself — more brands than ever are partnering with experts who can handle the process more efficiently and cost effectively from beginning to end. The right partner can help you accomplish more with less budget, less risk and a lower packaging footprint.
Victory Packaging has a proven track record for helping customers reduce material waste, including through packaging automation, packaging engineering and packaging sourcing. We help organizations navigate these options so that the strategy reflects their existing operations and packaging goals.
Strategy 1: Right-Sized Packaging Automation
We offer a full range of packaging automation solutions through our parent company, WestRock. This offering includes machines that can automatically optimize a package’s dimensional weight. We work with our customers to adjust their automation, enabling them to achieve the benefits of these innovative solutions without capital expenditure.
WestRock’s BoxSizer®
The BoxSizer® is the only standalone ecommerce packaging machine that continuously reduces multiple footprint box sizes. It optimizes DIM weight on-demand without any pauses for changeover from one box size to another.
WestRock’s Box On Demand®
The Box On Demand® makes custom right-sized boxes for every order using patented cartonization and dimensioning software. Ideal for organizations with highly variable shipping needs, this solution offers a proven alternative to ordering premade boxes.
WestRock’s Opera machine
This fully automated packaging line enables organizations to pack single or multiple items in perfectly customized boxes. It is specifically engineered to accommodate the packaging needs of the ecommerce channel.
Strategy 2: Packaging Engineering
Reducing material waste is about more than just packaging size; performance is also critical. Victory Packaging’s engineers excel at helping customers optimize their containers and protective packaging for performance, cost savings and limited waste.
By selecting the right materials, our engineers can minimize total material usage for the container, protective packaging and void fill. We use our specialized expertise to design packaging that best fits a product, and we leverage multiple SKUs when necessary to protect your products during transportation. The result is a solution that uses less material, offers uncompromising performance and optimizes your total packaging costs — without the potential risks of trying to update your packaging alone.
Want to see our expertise in action? View our material reduction success story.
Strategy 3: Packaging Sourcing
Packaging sourcing may seem like the easiest antidote to material reduction. However, it takes the right relationships and specialized knowledge to source the right material with the right specifications at the right cost. Packaging isn’t a one-size-fits all challenge, and tailored packaging can only be sourced through a strong, extensive packaging supply chain.
Over the last few decades, Victory Packaging has built a robust supply chain powered by close relationships. We leverage this vast network of vendors to source the right material for each customer’s application.
Get Started Today With Packaging Material Reduction
Now more than ever, sustainability is a key driver of packaging strategies. But sustainable packaging isn’t just about what type of packaging material you utilize; it’s also about reducing material waste. With the right approach, material reduction can enhance your packaging sustainability, protect your product and reduce your costs.
Whether you’re ready to explore packaging automation, packaging engineering or packaging sourcing, we’re here to help. Want to reduce your packaging waste but aren’t sure where to start? Contact us today so that we can navigate the options together.