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Unilever’s Love Beauty and Planet reduces carbon footprint with bag-in-box

A better, award-winning solution for the personal care industry

Sustainability is one of our top priorities at SIG, and at the root of many of our partnerships is a shared vision for more environmentally-friendly solutions. 

 

Unilever is a multifaceted consumer products company. According to their website, 2.5 billion people use products from one of their over 400 brands daily. Unilever has a detailed sustainability plan that includes initiatives to reduce product waste, promote gender equity, and source raw materials from smallholder producers and environmentally conscious purveyors.

 

When they reached out to SIG to help them reimagine the packaging for their Love Beauty and Planet line of personal care items, we knew we'd be able to develop a plan that aligned with their values and resonated with their customers. 

The challenge: encouraging customers to take sustainable actions

Love Beauty and Planet makes sustainably-sourced beauty products available in grocery and big-box stores across the globe. 

 

As a brand under the Unilever umbrella, Love Beauty and Planet has implemented several sustainability initiatives internally but wanted to extend its reach further and design a packaging solution that actively engages its users.

The solution: BYOB—bring-your-own-bottles

We teamed up with Love Beauty and Planet to develop a dispensing system where users could bring their shampoo and conditioner bottles to popular convenience and beauty stores and fill them up when empty. 

 

Consumers refill their bottles from a 2L bag-in-box system with a SIG QuickSeal Connect. The system is easy to use, and the 2L bags can hold enough product to fill ten 200mL bottles. Consumers are encouraged to actively participate in reducing waste by bringing in their empty personal care bottles and they receive a discount when they fill their bottles using the new dispensing system.

 

Our collaboration with Love Beauty and Planet quickly garnered the attention of various packaging organizations. The refilling system was listed as a 2021 WorldStar winner by the World Packaging Organization, celebrating the best packaging innovations globally. SIG and Love Beauty and Planet won the Grand Packaging Cases Award, given by EmbalagemMarca, which recognizes achievements in packaging solutions that improve the lives of Brazilian consumers. 

The result: connecting to consumers through sustainability

This dispensing system created a bridge between Love Beauty Planet and its customers. "Our project offered the possibility for the consumer to consume less plastic, linking the brand to sustainability," a Love Beauty and Planet representative shared. Customers wouldn't just read about the brand's commitment to sustainability but could actively contribute.

 

Sustainability doesn't start and end in a warehouse or a lab—it continues outward, inviting all to do their part. Through our partnership with Love Beauty and Planet, we were able to help them:

  • build brand loyalty and create genuine connections with customers through a shared responsibility for the environment.
  • reduce greenhouse emissions, packaging weight, and material waste.
  • provide financial savings for the brand and consumers through lowered shipping weights and per-unit costs.
  • fulfill Love Beauty and Planet's commitment to sustainability in a way that is both measurable and long-lasting.

We’re excited to talk to businesses serious about harnessing the potential of bag-in-box technology, whether in an industrial, institutional, or retail setting—let’s brainstorm something together!