Next Industrial Revolution Has Begun

There’s a revolution brewing. We’re rethinking about the manufacture of consumer products and packaging.

The first Industrial Revolution featured a burst of creativity, ingenuity and inventiveness, enabling goods to be mass-produced. The next Industrial Revolution will utilize those very assets, along with the latest technological advances. By becoming better stewards of our energy, natural resources and the environment, we can make products and packaging better than we have in the past.

Environmentally friendly packaging is gaining impetus daily, thanks to companies like Wal-Mart. The retailer signaled a major trend with its Sustainable Packaging Scorecard in 2006 for its 65,000+ suppliers with the ultimate goal of becoming “packaging neutral” by 2025. Translation: having all packaging that flows through its distribution chain recyclable, reusable, compostable or recoverable for future use by 2025.

Wal-Mart’s purchasing power sent ripples throughout all consumer product sectors. Its ambitious agenda pushed product companies to adopt sustainable packaging measures. While still a brave new world for business, measures can be implemented, one at a time, making a positive environmental impact, while being economical. However, to be effective, companies must have a sustainable mindset from the top down, in every aspect of their businesses.

Environmentally friendly packaging reduces, reuses, recycles, removes, renews. Reducing excess packaging is the most sustainable of steps to take. By cutting down on overall packaging footprints and extraneous materials inside of packaging, there are substantive savings. Many companies are steadily doing just that.

As a result, more products can be packed into shipping cartons and more cartons onto pallets. Fewer truckloads reduce energy costs and harmful emissions into the environment. The “reduce” concept has many ramifications, all of which can add substantially to profits.

Reusing packaging is the next most sustainable step. This actually used to be more widespread than it is today. In the past, old-fashioned milk bottles were reused by local dairy producers. Today, the return deposits on soda cans enable manufacturers to collect, clean and reuse them. Reusable convenient food packaging helps eliminate waste, especially when repurposed.

And how about developing packaging that is literally part of the product? Hasbro Sigma 6 GI Joe Action figures packaging turns into carrying cases that hold the figures and their accessories.

In their book, Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough and Michael Braungart make the case that products and packaging can and should be reconfigured using a closed-loop process. It’s the ultimate recycling.

Since the Industrial Revolution, a “cradle to grave” system has been in place; products and packaging ending up in landfills at the end of their useful life cycles. In a “cradle to cradle” system, materials are perpetually circulated and reused in “closed loops.” This extracts maximum value from materials already in use without ending up in landfills, virtually eliminating the heavy waste streams we have today.

Many companies purchase packaging made from post-consumer waste. Recycled packaging and packaging made from renewable sources are a way of life for natural-product companies that have practiced sustainability for decades. For example, Kashi cereals and Tom’s of Maine oral and personal care products use recycled packaging. Widespread distribution has made mainstream consumers and mass market product manufacturers more aware of recycled packaging.

There was a time when packaging was meant to deliver products intact, retain integrity; to keep them safe for consumers. Now, packaging itself has to become safer and healthier for society. It must deliver the usual benefits, while minimizing negative effects on the environment.

Let the next revolution begin so we can start eliminating million tons of product and packaging waste from worldwide landfills. We’ll all be able to breathe a little bit easier.