Do or die: CPGs have five years to produce responsible packaging or risk “instant irrelevancy,” warns global design leader

27 Mar 2019 --- Jos Harrison, Global Design Leader for Reckitt Benckiser (RB), a global consumer health, hygiene and home company, claims that responsible packaging is now a key driver in product purchasing decisions and that CPGs must act urgently to avoid becoming fatalities in the transition to increased sustainability. In a wide-ranging interview with PackagingInsights, Harrison also discusses the “amazingly versatile” benefits of plastics, the viability of bioplastics, the demand for greater product transparency and the implementation of connective packaging technologies.

PackagingInsights: What did you learn from last month’s Packaging Innovations show in Birmingham?
Harrison: The most important thing I learned is that we have finally reached a tipping point in everyone’s understanding of “sustainable” packaging development – and this new level of understanding is now directly affecting people’s decisions to buy or not to buy. As industry professionals, we have an unprecedented opportunity to guide CPG into a more responsible and positive place over the next five years. Notably, any company that does not or will not fundamentally change their approach to packaging within this timeframe to take account of this new heightened understanding will become instantly irrelevant.

PackagingInsights: As you note, sustainability is a key challenge for the industry right now. Where is this drive for increased sustainability coming from exactly?
Harrison: As with any significant change in our industry, the impetus comes from the end-user. They are demanding packaging solutions that are demonstrably safer, more responsibly sourced, more sparingly used and less damaging to our world post-use. In this we are simply victims of our own success – the CPG industry has worked hard to create and propagate the desirability of consumerism, so now we have to “clean up” the impact of that scale and volume.

PackagingInsights: Where do you stand on the plastics debate?
Harrison: Plastics have been demonized as the latest threat to our environment – but in truth, they are an amazingly versatile material that has been vastly misused and miscommunicated. Greater investment in recycling and more intelligent design for re-use should be our focus now to ensure that we use this group of materials in a responsible “closed loop.” This will require a further change in behavior for both manufacturers and consumers – but we have to drive the change.

PackagingInsights: In what ways is RB increasing the sustainability of its packaging?
Harrison: At RB, we are focused on a full-lifecycle approach to sustainable business and products – and for our packaging, this is most evident in plastics reduction and replacement, moving all of our PSA labeling solutions to non-mechanical removal (in an industrial recycling context), redesigning the user-experience of our packs to make them easier to re-use or recycle for the consumer. We are also working on fundamentally new business models to deliver far greater sustainability in the mid-term.

PackagingInsights: How has this influenced RB’s recent packaging launches?
Harrison: This year we replaced all of our new trigger-spray products with a monomaterial solution – enabling the trigger itself to recycled along with other plastics (most triggers still contain a metal spring which renders the trigger assembly non-recyclable). We designed the trigger to also feel and perform better in use, enhancing the product experience for the user.Jos Harrison, Global Design Leader for Reckitt Benckiser

PackagingInsights: Does more sustainable packaging inevitably mean reduced cost-effectiveness?
Harrison: Increased sustainability in packaging is often assumed to have a “price tag” – which is true if Cost of Goods is the sole input to the calculation. In fact, it is important to assess all cost-affecting aspects of sourcing, production, filling, distribution and merchandising – even recycling and re-use. Creative and conscious design of the entire process can yield savings to “pay” for more sustainable materials and processes or add value to the consumer proposition in ways that can offset the cost to the manufacturer.

PackagingInsights: Do you think that bioplastics have a role to play in a more sustainable future? Are you exploring this avenue?
Harrison: Biopolymers are an intriguing future material for the Consumer Goods industry – but the prerequisite for their use at scale is the ability to auto-sort them from among other plastic waste. Everyone in the industry knows that they are detrimental to the quality of other plastic recycling streams so for now, they are not a viable alternative for CPG. RB is closely monitoring the development of technologies in this area to ensure we can make responsible choices when it becomes a viable material for us.

PackagingInsights: UK recycling levels are reportedly lagging well behind European standards. What needs to change to improve this?
Harrison: RB tends to focus on global activation so my understanding of the specific challenges faced by the UK is limited. If the UK underperforms versus EU standards, the question should perhaps be “what does the rest of Europe do better” when it comes to recycling? The majority of Western Europe has a more established sense of communal responsibility for the environment, introduced to people at a very early age through schools – and in a number of countries, incentive schemes have been proven to work, while in others there are heavy penalties for not recycling appropriately. Ultimately the answer will lie in understanding the value-exchange that works for today’s UK consumer – as they are the key to “closing the loop.”

PackagingInsights: Shelf-appeal remains a key function of packaging. How can packaging designers be successful in this area?
Harrison: Shelf-appeal is intrinsically linked to the category and proposition of your products; using materials, forms and graphics that semiotically communicate the key differentiating benefit of your product will drive shelf-appeal far more intuitively and powerfully than flashy trend-driven tricks. The only influential trend for all of CPG right now should be the drive toward ever greater transparency: of product, brand and company. Brands in our time will now live or die by their willingness to let people in, instead of showing a façade.

PackagingInsights: Some experts are predicting that connective packaging technologies – particularly NFC – will experience full-scale deployments in 2019. How is RB working in this space?
Harrison: NFC is still a relatively expensive technology to incorporate into FMCG products – but creative use (in POS for example) could enable its exposure to a wider audience of shoppers in supermarket environments. We are building a huge “connected” pack capability right now, using scannable codes – as they can be incorporated into high-volume packaged goods without adding to the cost.

Connected technologies are massive opportunity for our industry to enhance the experience of consumer products both in-store and in-use – and I would urge all of my colleagues in CPG to think creatively about how to use them and what kind of content will add to the consumer experience of your products – don’t just default to a competition promo.

By Joshua Poole