When it comes to packaging, first impressions matter, but it is the lasting impression that might be more important. After all, while a beautiful bottle may look great on-shelf or online, it will surely lose its appeal if it washes ashore on a sandy beach or ends up as landfill.
All CPG companies—household, beauty and personal care included—are looking to reduce the impact their packaging has on the planet. But finding the right solution can be complex and the situation is fluid, which makes for a lot of gray areas, according to marketers, retailers and other stakeholders along the supply chain.
In 2020, nearly every high-profile multinational, medium-size brand and startup is on a pathway toward becoming a more sustainable business. When it comes to packaging, they are making changes—some sweeping, some incremental—to the tubes, caps, bottles and boxes in which they house their products. At the same time, they need to keep a close eye on aesthetics and functionality, as consumers still have high expectations about the products they purchase and use on a daily basis.
Take ubiquitous personal care staple deodorant.
Procter & Gamble Beauty is testing
Old Spice and
Secret deodorants in all-paper tube packages at 500 Walmart stores in the US. This new packaging, made of 90% recycled paper, is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and features a push up design that would replace some of P&G’s plastic stick deodorant cannisters. In this test, P&G wants to glean how consumers respond to the design, which is different than the typical stick deodorant package to which consumers have become accustomed. If successful, P&G says it will expand the new package across more of its line.
“With switching to a paperboard structure, the functionality is different. We will be learning about how much consumers will be willing to trade off functionality of that format,” Chris Bates, personal care R&D packaging, Procter & Gamble, told Happi.
Additional efforts have already reduced P&G’s deodorant packaging footprint overall. Earlier this year, the company reduced the amount of plastic in its Secret antiperspirant and deodorant cannisters by 8%, a move it contends saves 900,000 pounds of plastic waste.
Incremental steps like these can have a big impact when they’re taken by an industry giant. For example, if P&G converts 10% of its current deodorant packages to recycled paper or another recyclable material, it could annually eliminate up to 1.5 million pounds of plastic waste.
In fact, finding better, more sustainable packaging has been a work in progress for Procter & Gamble for years, from the use of PCR in Tide bottles, that’s been ongoing for three decades, to last year’s roll out of a limited-edition
Olay Regenerist Whip with a refill pod that eliminates 94% of plastic waste. Under its Ambition 2030 program, P&G established more goals. For example, P&G Beauty brands have committed to using 100% recyclable or reusable packaging while reducing the use of virgin petroleum plastic 50% by 2030. With so many brands under the P&G umbrella, sustainability is no doubt a complex endeavor. But Bates sees it as an asset.
“When you have big leadership brands like Secret and Old Spice, the changes we can make can have a big impact in terms of tonnage. We also have smaller brands that we can experiment with. I view this as an asset toward making progress,” he told Happi.
Procter & Gamble was an early partner in
Terracycle’s Loop, which sells mainstream consumer products from laundry detergent to ice cream in durable, reusable packaging.
With its pilot launched just about a year ago in the New York City and Mid-Atlantic area, Loop recently announced that it will be available to “consumers in every ZIP code in the contiguous US” this month.
According to reports,
Loop had record sales in March and April, following the shift in consumer spending from in-stores to online during stay-at-home orders and rising concerns about COVID-19’s spread.
With the uptick in online purchases, Kao USA’s launch comes at the right time. Its new MyKirei by
Kao products, which hit
Amazon in late April, feature plant-based formulas that 95% biodegradable and housed in a new bottle uses up to 50% less plastic than traditional bottles. The bottles of Nourishing Shampoo, Conditioner and Hand Wash gain their rigidity through an air fill, allowing them to stand upright like a traditional bottle. Kao has partnered with TerraCycle to create a program to allow consumers to recycle the package and the pumps post-use.
(Re)Filler Up
Many consumers are still going to the store during the pandemic, but they have been doing so less frequently, often stocking up on key products and buying in bulk to avoid making extra trips. In this new normal, consumers would be more willing to stock up—as long as they had a place to store it and it was easy to use. Options like the new Mother & Child Ecos Refill Kit from homecare company
Ecos fit the bill.
Recently rolled out for the brand’s Dishmate Dish Soap and All-Purpose Cleaner Orange Plus, the kits have a patented “click-in” packaging design that includes a 64- or 96oz refill bottle that’s easy to hold, lift and pour, and a 16oz everyday bottle that’s light and comfortable for one-hand use. The unique system also makes storage easier, according to the company; both bottles in the refill snap together, making them compact and convenient to store under the sink or in the pantry.
Aside from the convenience it provides for end users, the design reduces plastic use, too. The proprietary design keeps the everyday bottle securely in place in the refill bottle with shrink wrap or outside packaging. In addition, the refill kits offer a significant savings in bottle plastic compared to five individual containers that the kit replaces.
Refills have been growing in beauty, too.
Rahua, which offers plant-powered beauty products, recently unveiled its first refill system with Classic Shampoo and Classic Conditioner Refill Pouches. The sustainable pouches provide customers the ability to immediately reduce plastic usage of their regular bottle by 90%; as well as reduce their individual carbon footprint, said the brand. The pouches are made with 60% biodegradable plant fibers.
“That is our current solution. We are looking for com completely compostable options now,” Anna Ayers, Rahua co-founder, said during an Earth Day video press conference. In addition, Rahua is transitioning to sustainable frosted glass bottles, starting with three key products—Rahua Control Cream, Rahua Omega 9 Hair Mask and Rahua Freestyle Texturizer.
Marrying sustainability with luxury design is on display at Lancôme. Its Absolue Revitalizing & Brightening Soft Cream and Rich Cream come with refill pods that clip into a gold jar allowing for a more ecologically sustainable design that’s upscale, too. With each refill purchase, the weight of the glass is reduced 33%, and total waste reduction is cut 41%, according to Lancôme.
Continuous Change
Across beauty, brands are implementing plans centered on more sustainable packaging.
Now a certified B Corp.,
Arbonne earlier this year unveiled ArbonneCycle, a recycling program for its hard-to-recycle packaging and componentry in partnership with TerraCycle. The program covers Arbonne personal care product packaging as well as products such as protein shake bags and bar wrappers, Fizz Stick packets and more. Launched in the US, Arbonne says it plans to expand the programs globally.
In addition, by offering a concentrated shower gel, Arbonne has been able to make a change in packaging. Only a pea-sized amount of Botaniques Concentrated Shower Gel is needed and one package—which has a footprint that’s half the size of a traditional body wash—provides enough product for 40 showers, according to Arbonne.
Zotos Professional recently unveiled Better Natured, a prestige hair care brand with naturally-derived, stylist-developed formulations. Better Natured, which is free from what Zotos calls “12 ingredient taboos” (silicones, parabens, SLS/SLES sulfates and phthalates for example), is packaged in post-consumer recycled PET plastic. The line was tested in a certified Green Circle Salon. Green Circle is a B Corp that provides a sustainable salon program that allows salon owners to repurpose and recover up to 95% of the resources that were once considered waste—materials such as hair, leftover hair color, foils, color tubes, aerosol cans, paper and plastics. Zotos is also working with TerraCycle on the Better Natured Recycling Program.
Tossing an empty bottle into the recycling bin seems simple enough, but recycling is much more complex for consumers and stakeholders alike, especially in the beauty space.
“When you look up and down the supply chain, many are confused about what is recyclable—and that is problematic,” said Mia Davis, director of social and environmental responsibility at
Credo. Varying small sizes and multi-composition materials—think metal springs and plastic in a pump dispenser—means skin care and cosmetics packaging can’t always be recycled in public programs, leaving end users with few options beyond their trash can.
By working with TerraCycle, Credo has made it easier for its customers to recycle personal care products. Since the San Francisco-based company paired up with TerraCycle three years ago, 6,300 customers have brought their empties into Credo stores, resulting in the proper recycling of more than 30,000 pounds of products.
With a customer base that prioritizes clean beauty, recycling would seem second nature, but Credo does offer a carrot—participation points that can be used for future purchases.
“Points are the icing on the cake,” Davis said.
Across beauty and personal care, brands continue to assess and retool their packaging.
This past January, for example,
Fekkai relaunched a collection of shampoo, conditioner, and treatments packaged in 95% high-grade repurposed plastic that is 100% recyclable. This year, the company says it will repurpose 64 million grams of plastic, roughly seven million plastic bottles. In April, the company offered limited edition mushroom packaging created with 100% compostable and biodegradable ingredients such as mycelium and hemp hurds.
Mary Kay Inc. has signed on to the
Sustainable Packaging Initiative for CosmEtics (SPICE), joining 17 other member organizations that include L’Oréal, Chanel, Coty and Estée Lauder that aim to collectively shape the future of sustainable packaging.
SPICE members are working to make significant progress in three key areas:
- Guiding solid sustainable packaging policy development based on a robust and harmonized methodology, recognized at sector level;
- Driving packaging innovation based on objective eco-design criteria to progress toward more sustainable solutions; and
- Meeting consumers’ expectations by improving communication and providing more clarity on the environmental performance of products.
The first committee meeting took place in May 2018, and since then, SPICE has hosted five committee meetings where members share their experience and knowledge. Like so many other events during the COVID-19 pandemic, the most recent one, in early April, was held virtually, according to staffers at sustainability consultancy Quantis, which is a SPICE co-founder.
Common Goals
How an individual company addresses sustainability in terms of its packaging is influenced by myriad factors, including business size, core values and customers’ expectations, to name just a few.
Supplement brand
Hum is moving to packaging “ocean-bound” plastics. According to the company, the contract it signed indicates that “millions of bottles’ worth of plastics will be reused before they end up in our oceans.” The first of the new bottles will make their way into Hum’s supply chain by the end of this year and will be on shelves in 2021. In addition, Hum is joining the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.
As part of its efforts to reduce plastic and carbon footprint, all of Coola’s tubes are made of sustainably-sourced sugar-cane resin, which is 100% recyclable, secondary packaging is made of post-consumer recycled paper and the firm uses as much glass as possible. In fact, the majority of its bottles and jars, more than 80%, are made of glass. Plastic is used mainly when needed for the safety and functionality of the product, in which case Coola says it strives to use the eco-friendliest options available, according to company.
Indie deodorant brand
Each & Every continues to seek more sustainable packaging, too.
“Before we even launched the brand, we wanted to launch with sustainable packaging, but because we use 100% natural essential oils and no synthetic fragrance, none of the sustainable package options we tried were compatible with our formula,” Each & Every’s Co-Founder Lauren Lovelady told Happi. “The essential oils would break down the package materials. We ultimately decided to launch in plastic so that consumers would have access to our incredible formula and we decided that we would keep working on sustainable packaging in parallel.”
In 2019, the company found a package that was made from post-consumer recycled material.
“This was a more sustainable option than petroleum-based plastic, but consumers told us that while they appreciated the effort, they didn’t see it as sustainable enough. We value the feedback of our incredible community and feel so fortunate to be able to have a two-way dialogue because this conversation led us to decide to look for other new materials instead of investing in a solution that they didn’t feel was sufficient.”
Recently, it switched its Lavender and Lemon scent SKU into new sugarcane packaging, which is recyclable and can be recycled at home or commercially.
“What we love about the sugarcane is that it’s actually carbon negative, so it reduces our carbon footprint,” said Lovelady. “Sugarcane is a renewable resource, unlike petroleum, and growing it absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, so it’s a great sustainable packaging option.”
Each & Every plans to expand sugarcane packaging to other SKUs during the course of the year.
A Plastic Pushback
Boulder, CO-based
Alpine Provisions Co., a maker of natural and organic personal care products, has committed to going completely plastic-free, switching out the 100% post-consumer plastic it was using.
Founder and CEO Joshua Scott Onysko said he believed that his company was making a sound choice using post-consumer plastic to house his product line, but realized that whether it was petroleum- or plant-based, it was still plastic—and too much of it was ending up in the ocean.
Alpine Provisions will use aluminum, a material that can recycled infinitely, for its hand-sanitizer, hair care and liquid soap bottles; its lip balm and deodorant will be housed in paper tubes that are recyclable and compostable; and its bar soap will be wrapped in paper.
“Our industry has been surviving on plastic for 80 years. Plastic is a major problem,” he said.
According to Alpine Provisions, only 7% of all plastic is ever recycled, and it can only be recycled 2-3 times.
“We are so addicted to plastic. It has no value. That’s why it is littered all over. Aluminum and glass has value and that’s why you don’t see in on the road and in the ocean.”
According to Onysko, single use plastic is used for a few minutes and thrown away knowing it lasts for 25 years or even longer.
On the flip side, 84% all aluminum ever made is still in use today, and because it is lightweight, shipping aluminum saves millions of pounds of carbon emissions per year.
Alpine Provisions recently announced that it has been picked up by national outdoor retailer REI, and other shops like Natural Grocers, Lazy Acres and Thrive Market, have reportedly placed orders to carry the brand’s plastic-free packaging when it’s available, which is expected sometime around the end of the month.
Onysko wants to see his company’s initiative spark an industry-wide shift away from plastic packaging entirely.
“Saying it’s recyclable is a cop out,” Onysko said.
Further, he questioned whether or not companies that sell their products in plastic packaging could claim to be cruelty-free, knowing that their packaging could end up in places like the ocean, where “100 million marine animals die every year because of plastic pollution.”
Solution Seeking
Brand leaders across the household and personal products industry must continue to make decisions about their packaging componentry and related programs with a keen eye on the environment as well as consumers.
Brent Heist, global packaging sustainability lead,
Procter & Gamble, said there’s a need to consider the “spectrum of consumers” and where they may be in their own journey regarding sustainability, too.
“We recognize that there is the heavily involved consumer to those who don’t want to be bothered,” said Heist said, noting that there are also economic and time constraints that factor into where a consumer falls on that spectrum. “We need to design solutions that make it easy for consumers to make better choices.”
