Scaling up sustainability

After COVID-19, we can expect a greater consumer commitment to purchase from responsible companies. How will this affect producers?

COVID-19 has highlighted how crucial it is for companies to be responsible and consider their impact. The pandemic has sparked an important conversation about how businesses can better support people, society and the environment. And in the post-corona era, it’s clear that businesses will be scrutinised more than ever – not only in what they produce but also how they act and what they say. With this kind of pressure, now is the time for producers to consider how they can effectively minimise the environmental impact of their products and processes. This coupled with an already increasing consumer awareness around sustainability, producers have a great opportunity to leverage the demand for products with a smaller carbon footprint.

With this growing awareness around social value and purpose, what kind of products are consumers looking for?

With big concerns like plastic pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change – as well as COVID-19 – more and more consumers want every part of the product they buy to contribute to a better society. Consumers also want to choose brands that do more than produce ‘green’ looking products – they need to involve sustainability at every stage of the product lifecycle and communicate this. This means consumers want products sourced and produced in an environmentally-friendly way. They want products with recyclable packaging made from renewable and responsibly-sourced materials. And they want products that are honest about where they come from and the impact they have.

What can producers do to increase or scale up their sustainability efforts, and communicate this to consumers?

If a producer wants to offer more sustainable and responsible products then packaging, and the system behind it, is a good place to start. Packaging is the first key touch-point for consumers and influences the entire brand experience, particularly for sustainability-conscious consumers. Independent lifecycle assessments show SIG carton packs offer a significantly better environmental performance than alternative packaging. And to help producers offer even more responsible and sustainable packaging, we offer a range of solutions that go even further for the environment. These solutions are scalable and designed to help customers gradually develop more streamlined processes and responsible products in their sustainability journey. And they’re able to help producers create a consumer story that supports sustainable ideals and make the brand feel honest and authentic.

So how exactly is SIG meeting the demand for responsible products and also ensuring producers can react quickly?

In many markets around the world, SIG is considered a frontrunner in sustainability. We were the first to have all our packaging 100% FSC™-certified, meaning all our paperboard comes from responsibly-managed forests. Our SIGNATURE 100 aseptic structure was the first to be fully linked to plant-based renewable materials via mass balance. We were first to offer beverage cartons made with recycled polymers produced from post-consumer plastic waste. And we were also first to introduce paper straws for beverage carton packs. As well as this, we were the first to offer aseptic carton packs using aluminium foil certified to the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative standard. And, with our EcoPlus, SIGNATURE 100 and Heat&Go packaging structures, we were the first in the aseptic carton industry to eliminate the layer of aluminium foil.

But how can SIG eliminate aluminium in its aseptic packaging?

As we saw earlier in this series, SIG has a unique sleeve system where our cartons are delivered as flat-packed sleeves with the long side already hygienically sealed. Each sleeve is then individually shaped, sterilised and filled at a customer site using our filling machines. After filling, each pack is ultrasonically sealed above the filling level and not through the product. This ultrasonic sealing is what makes it possible for us to create aseptic packaging structures without aluminium. And it’s why our alu-free solutions are currently the only aluminium-free aseptic structures in the market – helping us minimise fossil resources in packaging production while preserving the safety and nutritional quality of products. Because offering aluminium-free packaging is a big step towards our ultimate goal of providing 100% renewable packaging.

How can your system help producers meet future sustainability demands? 

We know that becoming a sustainable business isn’t a one-and-done action. And it isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s a step-by-step process with new demands arising all the time. But with our fast and flexible filling system, our customers will always be able to react quickly and efficiently to future sustainability demands. In the same way our customers get high volume and format flexibility on the same line, they can also choose between all our sustainable packaging structures. This means they can easily make a product even more sustainable, for example, going from our standard structure to one of our SIGNATURE structures without any change to their line. So, depending on how sustainable producers want to be, they always have a flexible range to choose from.

Meeting every price point

As well as health and sustainability, another key challenge that COVID-19 has solidified is how to flexibly and quickly meet every consumer price point due to rising unemployment and a drop in spending power. Don’t miss part four in the Flexible for the Future series when we’ll discuss how producers can always match new products to the buying power of their target groups – from affordable to premium.

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