OUGD601 | Packaging Research - 'Spoiler alert: Packaging helps reduce No.1 source of food waste by Robert Lilienfeld.' - Online website, Packaging Digest

·      Packaging Digest (2017) Spoiler alert: Packaging helps reduce No.1 source of food waste by Robert Lilienfeld. Available at: http://www.packagingdigest.com/sustainable-packaging/spoiler-alert-packaging-helps-reduce-no1-source-of-food-waste-2017-11-1. (Accessed: 25th November 2017).

• "It is not the number of people on the planet that is the issue – but the number of consumers and the scale and nature of their consumption," says David Satterthwaite, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. He quotes Gandhi: "The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed."
• "The global impact of adding several billion people to these urban centres might be surprisingly small."
• "It is not the number of people on the planet that is the issue – but the number of consumers and the scale and nature of their consumption."
• The real concern would be if the people living in these areas decided to demand the lifestyles and consumption rates currently considered normal in high-income nations; something many would argue is only fair. If they do, the impact of urban population growth could be much larger
• "If we change our consumption habits, this would have a drastic effect on our environmental footprint as well."
• The analysis showed that household consumers are responsible for more than 60% of the globe's greenhouse gas emissions, and up to 80% of the world's land, material and water use. 
• "If we change our consumption habits, this would have a drastic effect on our environmental footprint as well."

OUGD601 | Packaging Research - 'Designing Sustainable Packaging' by Scott Boylston

Boylston, Scott, 'Designing Sustainable Packaging'. Laurence King; 01 edition. 4th May 2009.

Is package design suffering from a dead-end mentality? - page.12 - 13

• Package designers have failed to consider a 'second life' for their creations for good reasons; packages were simply never intended to be reused. 
• The present era of disposable convenience, which has lasted less than half a century, is quickly approaching its end - by necessity. Before this era, people imaginatively used and reused any object they could obtain, including packages for consumer goods.
• Our recent shortsighted splurge on disposability for disposability's sake is luxury that the world can no longer afford. 
• It's no longer risky for graphic designers to suggest pursuing 'green' printing options to clients. Only a few years ago, such suggestions elicited derision and cynicism. 
• However, companies around the world are searching for sustainable alternatives to their printed matter and packaging, and graphic designers have an opportunity to reimagine the end of another one. 
• The dead-end, one-way street that our contemporary packages end up on happens to be the only street that we, as a species, have. 
• The catch is that now graphic designers must expand their field of expertise and accept this new responsibility.
• They must learn to navigate this new terrain, and incorporate a solid understanding of sustainable options into every projects. 
• This trend can empower savvy graphic designers to provide a valuable consulting service to their clients, thus helping increase the company's 'triple bottom line.' 

Research | design | research | design... - page.22 - 25

• The designer begins with an investigation into the targeted consumer's behaviour and preferences..
• While packaging is one part of a much larger marketing mix which includes advertising, e-commerce and direct marketing, once the consumer has arrived at a retail site, a more immediate relationship between package, product and consumer predominates. 
• The process of on-sitre persuasion that begins with the visual allure of a package - its size, shape, colour scheme and graphic and typographic charm - must then live up to the physical experience consumers have once the package is in their hands. The proof of touching. The physical interaction can instantaneously trigger a consumer's decision - making process. 
• Packages that 'feel right' in the hand usually live up to the best advertising and marketing and, furthermore, can often transcend all but the worst advertising and marketing. 
• 'Behaviour studies' - observing consumer behaviour in settings that obscure the fact that the subjects are being watched - usually provide a more accurate reflection of normalised behaviour. 
• Individual deeply biased, derived from personal histories and brand favouritism, so much so that an accurate baseline of package-to-consumer relationship is difficult to determine. 
• It has been shown 30 per cent of shelf brands are not even viewed by consumers. 
• Packages are not handled because they are unattractive or because they are completely invisible to a consumer's quick shelf-scan. 

Fundamental concepts of package design - page. 26

• Distinctive package form can help define product personality and brand essence. Several important considerations regarding various aspects of package design, from technical prerequisites to human perception are discussed. 
• Package is a functional tool that fulfils the various requirements of commerce. 
• Brand hierarchy to the practicalities of transportation, containment, storage, display, end-use and disposal. 
• Package must also be: attractive, dispensable, have an identity, inform consumers, and persuasion. 
• A well-design package must provide the consumer with convenience even as it strives to define style and essential brand qualities. 

What's the problem? Part 1: Organisational procedures without vision - page. 28 - 29

• Considering John Thackara's statement that 'eighty per cent of environmental impact if the products, services and infrastructure around us is determined at the design stage', designers are not as helpless in the area of sustainable change and client influence as they often think.
• The first problem to overcome when considering the move towards more sustainable practices in package design; that of connectivity and communication. 
• A properly executed lifecycle analysis (LCA) of package's hidden cost is essential when assessing the degree of ecological damage attributed to its entire lifespan. A LCA looks closely at the entire range of factors, form 'upstream' costs such as energy consumption, raw materials extraction, transportation, infrastructure, toxic, by=product and habitat and climate impacts. 
• 'downstream costs such as distribution, consumer convenience, product protection (criminal encroachment as well as breakage and spoilage), shelf storage, marketing needs, disposal and recyclability. 
• What role does a graphic designer have in this cycle? 
• While the traditional role of a graphic designer places them somewhere between the marketing and advertising department, graphic designers who are engaged with the larger playing field of visual communications, and who take their role as systematic thinker and problem-solver. 
• Designers hope to contribute to the paradigm shift towards sustainability must make design decisions based on what they understand of the entire process to which there work us applied. 

What's the problem? Part 2: Packaging procedures without vision - page. 30 - 31

• Solid Waste - over 68 million tonnes (75 million tons) of packaging materials enter the US waste stream every year (the total amount of municipal solid waste in the US for 2005 million tonnes was 222 million tonnes (245 millions tons) - EPA). Imagine for each state in the Union. This amount of rubbish does not just stay there. As it slowly breaks sown, toxins to inks, adhesive to bleached pulp and plastics leach into surrounding soil and water sources. 
• Water Pollution - more than a billion people use unsafe sources of drinking water. Daniel Imhoff, author of Paper and Plastic, it 'ranks third in hazardous effluent due to the pluping and bleaching processes, which places it behind only chemical and steel industries. 
• Air Pollution - each step of materials development requires massive amount of energy, and the energy burned creates significant amounts of air pollutions. 
• The ill-health effects that result from breathing air pollution are too numerous to list here, but the World Health Organisation estimated the in 2002, three million deaths resulted from all sources of air pollution. 
• Forest Depletion - The Rainforest Alliance estimates that 40 hectares (100 acres) of tropical rainforest are lost every minute. 
• Depletion of other Raw Materials - John Thackara, in his book In The Bubble: Designing For A Complex World, note that a product or package represents approximately eight per cent of the actual material used to create it. 
• Energy Consumption - the primary environmental problems with packaging is in the energy consumption within its lifecycle. Such as manufacturing cycle and energy required for transportation. 
• 'We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the work. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us.' - Wendell Berry. 

Package design and sustainability: constructing a future - page. 33.

• Package designers have many dilemma: very few other disciplines are engaged in the process of materials consumption. 
• We use natural resources in our packages as a means of persuading consumers to purchase products which are themselves the culmination of material extraction, consumption and production. 
• Package designer habit of compounding materials consumption in ways that are simply not sustainable. 

Rethinking the very methods of imagining form and function will address the changing ecological and social needs of our world culture - page 34 to 35.

• our present productions, consumption and disposal are destroying our global life-support system. In the book Natural Capitalism, author Hawkins, Lovins and Lovins put it in this way: 'In the past three decades alone, for instance, one-third of the planet's resources, its "natural wealth," has been consumed.' 
• Trend that young designers might want to rebel against. 
• Author tell us: 'A major German retailer found that 98 per cent of all secondary packaging - boxes around toothpaste tubes, plastic wrap around ice-cream cartons - is simply unnecessary'. 
• Remarkably high percentage; even at 50 per cent, such a trend embodies gross inefficiency. 
• In 2001, Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren wrote there book Packaging Prototypes 3: Thinking Green, a genuinely helpful text for anyone interested in the effects of ecological unsustainable packaging, and the positive steps that were being taken at the time to alter ways in which we thought about materials consumption. 
• Previous 20 years, observing that consumers in the late 1980s could no longer ignore the negative repercussions of their consumptive habits. Visible negative impact of overconsumption. 
• 'signals could no longer be ignored and the ecological agenda became firmly etched in economic, political and social ideology'. 
• Given the still-accelerating state of the environmental degradation, that Dension and Yu Ren were overly optimistic in their assessment of the global mindset, and in their hopes for significant change.
• 'that the momentum established by these early environmental success are not lost subsequent waves of economic and consumer rationalism.' 
• Increased environmental damage our consumptive habits have since wrought. If not the actions of the individuals around the world, then at least in the collective conscience. 
• Graphic designers must help facilitate this trend towards sustainability. 
• As designers search for inspiration in the great modernist movements of the past, they must remember the innovators in these movements were not merely exploring new styles; they are suggesting new ways of thinking about the design's relationship with its culture. 

Sustainability: an introduction - page. 36 to 37

• 'Sustainability is not a new concept.'
• 'A sustainable society s one which satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of the future generations'. - Lester R Brown, the Founder and President of Worldwatch Institute. 
• Sustainable culture is one which satisfies its needs without diminishing the needs off other cultures, and a sustainable economy is one which satisfies its needs without diminishing the needs of other economies. 
• This is because sustainability is not all about one limited range of thought and interaction. Instead, it is a holistic attempt to mimic the best behaviours of the natural environment. 
• Low Toxicity - while cradle-to cradle practices make some allowance for the potential reuse of toxic chemicals, lee caustic materials can often be substituted. In a theme common sustainable thinking, an improvement in one area is often related to improvements in others. For instance, the use of less-toxics inks allows for higher rates of recycling and compostability. Advancements in production have made less-toxics substitutes cheaper and more accessible. 
• Renewable energy - the market within renewable energy continues to grow, so much so that there are many paper companies and printing facilities that provide service that make use pf renewable energy sources. 
• Reuse/Recycle - Reuse is a common practice on factory floors and residential neighbourhoods, and everywhere in between. The rate a which certain materials are recycled can be improved with the initiation of comprehensive collie action systems. Without the proper systems, individual recycling practices can be less productive. 
• Compostability - It is common that organic materials trapped in traditional dumps so not break down efficiently. Creating a packaging that can directly into the compost heap - or at least an industrial composting company - can significantly lower the waste stream. Composting is also a way to to give back to the natural systems that provides so much for the human survival.
• While the preceding pages categorise sustainability issues by areas of potential impact, the following pages focus one specific areas of materials usage, from paper and plastic to inks and adhesives. 
• Graphic designers have long understood the importance of visiting the printers they use for their projects. 
• 'Perhaps there should be no special category called "sustainable design". It might be simpler to assume that all designers will try to reshape their values and their work, so that all designs is based in humility, combines objective aspects of climate and the ecological use of materials with subjective intuitive processes..' - Victor Papanek. 

Following the stream: cleaner at the outset often means cleaner at the end - page. 46 to 47

• 'The most serious external costs of packaging lie in the extraction of natural resources, energy consumption and the emission of air and water pollutions throughout the manufacturing processes.' - Daniel Imhoff. 
• Cradle-To-Cradle - A blossom that does not take hold as a new seedling is not waste because it becomes nutrition for the ecosystem that feeds the tree to begin with. 
• Waste = Food, a philosophy espoused by McDonough and Braungart, encourages the isolation of two two closed-loop systems of materials use so that each loop can run in a perpetual cycle of reuse. The biological loop includes all biodegradable materials. The technological loop includes non-biogradgable synthetics and hazardous materials that either toxic to the biosphere or simply do not biodegrade. This is not recycling, because recycling down cycles materials, in that the quality of the material is less than its original quality. In cradle-to-cradle systems, quality is not compromised with the regenerating cycles. 
• Compostability - most common element that makes paper products from being certifiably compostable are inks and adhesives. 
• Within these commercial composting facilities, packages that make use of new bioplastics, like the bottle that Biota water comes in, can biodegrade in a matter of months without leaving any toxic residue. 

Who is looking after sustainability? - page. 48 - 49

• South Korea is liability on their consumers. Charging for waste disposal and thus encouraging consumer behaviour that favours products with less packaging. 
• Regulation, as William McDonough often states, is a sign of design failure. 'You don't filter smokestacks... Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.' 

Chapter 3: Sustainability in the professional realm - page. 57

• Cleaning up age packaging industry.. 
• The Sustainable Packaging coalition (SPC) was created expressly to drive change within the packaging industry. 
• These entrepreneurs are changing the way businesses' relationship to humanity and nature are defined, and applauding their efforts is a certain first step towards spreading their innovative spirit. 
• The hope in presenting such a weeping look at how various participants in the package design industry interact is that graphic designers  feel empowered, with a deeper understanding of the variables they must contend with as they approach a package-design project, and understand that all segments of the industry are in process of embracing real and quantifiable sustainable change. 

Interview: Anne Johnson - Director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition - page. 64 - 65 - 66 - 67

• 'Sustainable packaging is all about systems thinking; it's not just the packaging but also about the materials systems that relate to the package.' - Anna Johnson 
• Graphic designers and sustainability:
• Sustainable design is discussed in the context of an expanded definition of quality. We have to optimise resources, responsible sourcing, material health and resource recovery to the traditional design objectives of cost, performance, aesthetic and regulatory compliance. 
• Q) How can graphic designers stay abreast of advancements in sustainable packaging? There are a number of sustainable packaging newsletters offered by the mainstream packaging trade press. Packaging Strategies, Packaging Digest and Packaging Worlds all have sustainable packaging newsletters or portions of their magazines dedicated to the topic. 
• Q) What are the ways in which graphic designers can contribute to a change in client mentality? By helping conveying the significants of a lifecycle thinking will create the mental infrastructure for longer-term thinking about how we design solutions between and the sustainable future we need for us children. 

Case Study: Starbucks Coffee Company - page. 68 to 69

• 'The Starbucks design team continued its 'greening' process by using 100 per cent post-consumer waste paper from domestic sources, and eliminating pulp bleaching.' 
• Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to minimising the environment impacts of its business practice since it inception. 
• Starbucks clearly understands the importance of operating sustainably. 'We have a responsibility to sustainably source and manage our materials, but it's very difficult for one company to address this is issue alone,' states Margaret Papadakis. 
• A primary objective in the sustainable redesign process was material reduction, because the multiple layers in the old package weren't necessary for protecting the product, and the resulting source reduction would translate into savings in materials. 
• 'The key is thinking about the total lifecycle of the material during the design phase to make it possible for recovery'. 
• The lightweight packaging process began with using thinner paperboard, and continued with the elimination of the interior tray and the reduction of the outside sleeve from one that fully enclosed the product to one that covered only as much of the bottom of the bag as necessary to provide the package with vertical sustainability. 
• 'When designing for recycling, foil-stamping in highly discouraged because it cannot be stripped off the paper during the recycling process. It does force our creative group to be more innovative with their designs so they are engaging without having to depend on traditional methods of execution.' 

Interview: Joshua Onysko - Founder and CEO of Pangea Organics - page. 78 to 79

• 'How much energy is spent taking this hard tree and making it so soft and pliable? Imagine the energy it takes to make a two-by-four into a pair of panties - that's how much energy is required.' - Joshua Onysko. 
• Q) How can graphic designers help make a difference in the packaging industry? There's a ad that shows a family having all kinds if problems in their lives, and at the end it states that they don't need a therapist, they need an architect. Many problems can solve the world with simple tweaks in design. There are two things that cause most of the problems in the world. One is information (lack of) and the other is miscommunication. Usually both of these things can be solved with good design. 
• Designers need to understand how powerful their minds are. Design will solve the problems of the world.
• If it's being designed, after all, it means somebody's going to use it. 
• Q) What do you see as the main hurdles on the way to a sustainable future? Consumer education. The bamboo fabrics is the perfect example of that. People get a warm and fuzzy feeling because bamboo makes great flooring, but making clothes or sheets out of the same material is not necessarily sustainable. We have to start thinking and educating beyond how we presently behave, and eliminate our simplistic understanding of the world. I would say that two per cent of designers strive to design above and beyond what they think their consumers want. 

Interview: Nicole F. Smith - Environmental Director, Design & Source Productions, Inc. page. 94 to 95

 

OUGD601 | Packaging Research - 'SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients' by Aaris Sherin

Sherin, Aaris. 'SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients'. Rockport Publishers Inc. 1st July 2008. 

Chapter 1: Overview of Sustainable Design - page.12 - 13

• What is Sustainable Design? "Sustainability can be defined in many ways, but perhaps the easiest way to describe it is as the balanced use of natural, social, and economic capital for the continued health of the planet and future generations. Designers can enter into the discussion and begin to adopt sustainable practices at a variety of levels depending on there individual situations. Even professionals who have spent decades immersed in this issue agree that we have yet find the perfect ways of balancing our economic needs with the needs of the planet. Therefore, sustainable practice is more about working toward many small goals than it is about living absolutes. 
• "As global citizens, we have a duty to ensure that our work practices are sustainable, whatever the industry. In simple terms, it's about ensuring that the actions of today do not compromise the needs of future generations." Annie Carlile - principal and founder of Viola Eco-Graphic Design. 
• "Eco-friendly," "green," "eco-design," and similar expressions are frequently used to refer to processes and concepts that value environmental responsibility. Some designers and experts prefer to use these terms in addition to or instead of "sustainable." While not necessarily incorrect, it is important to understand that terms such as "green" and "eco-friendly" primarily refer to the environment, whereas "sustainability" also considers the social and economic implications of materials, designs, and production processes.

Introduction - page.9

• This book is a guide to sustainable thinking and processes for both professional and novice. It contains practical how-to information about: production, materials, and resources, inspirational stories, work by leading designers. 
• Majority of the text highlights on print production, as it is the most resource intensive area in which many graphic designers work. Nevertheless the book does include sections on sustainable packaging, Web design and environmental graphic design (EGD). 
• Unlike the environmental movement of the 1980s and 1990s, the sustainability movement is not motivated by guilt etc. It is instead led by a varied group of people who see the long-term environment, social, and economic benefits of working sustainably.

Corporate Sustainability: an emerging market - page.14

• Practicing sustainable design isn't just about doing the right thing; it's also a way of taking advantage of an emerging market. 
• "Consumers are awakening to the power they wield in the marketplace, and companies are afraid that they are losing out because their competition stands for something that they don't." - Hank Stewart of Green Team Advertising New York. 

How we got here - page.16

• "It is widely agreed that Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's 1962 book connecting impact to the environment, was a catalyst for the modern day environmental movement."
• Buckmister Fuller and Victor Papanek, began inspiring designers to consider their roles in environment degradation and social inequity long before it was cool to be green. 
• Buckminster Fuller - Fuller's work can be seen as a forerunner to the contemporary sustainability movement. As an inventor, scientist, writer, and environmental activist, Fuller believed in doing more with less. 
• Fuller's ideas about the integration of natural systems and human invention and his advocacy for environmental issues have been inspirational to many designers, environmentalists, and scholars who advocate the responsible use of the planet's remaining resources. 
• "Our planet Earth is home to all humans, but scientifically speaking it belongs only to the universe. It belongs equally to all humans. This is the natural, geometrical law. Any law of men which contradict nature are unenforceable and specious." - Buckminster Fuller. 

Victor Papanek - page.18

• Originally trained as an industrial designer, Victor Papanek challenged designers of all kinds to take responsibility for the social and environmental ramifications of their work. 
• He railed against built-in obsolescent saying that, "In all pollution, designers are implicated at least partially." The definition of a designer put forth by Papanek is that of a fully thinking problem solver. 
• It is a role both more powerful than that of visual stylist and one that requires greater accountability. 
• In his second book 'The Green Imperative' (Thames and Hudson, 1995), Papanek included "The wisdom to anticipate the environment, ecological, economic, and political consequences of design intervention" in his list of the skills and talents that a designer should possess. 

Cradle to Cradle - page.22

• In their seminal 2002 text, cradle to cradle, William McDonaugh and Michael Braungart proposed that proposed that products should be designed so that after their useful lives are over they can provide "nourishment" for something new. 
• They see flawed design models rather than consumption as the most pressing problem. 
• McDonaugh and Braungart advocate more intelligent and ecological design as a solution for sustainable prosperity. 
• Cradle to cradle principles are guided by the nation that in the natural world waste equals food and that is there is no reason for human activity to be inherently wasteful and destructive. 
• McDonaugh and Braungart argue that using the term "recycling" to describe a current system of recovery and reuse is somewhat disingenuous. They suggest that the contemporary industrial model is essentially a cradle to grave approach. 
• We "down cycle" rather that recycle.
• With each subsequent use we produce lower grade material until we are finally left with unusable waste that can only be incinerated or stored in landfills. 
• "Unless materials are specifically designed to ultimately become safe food for nature, composting can present problems as well. When so-called biodegradable municipal wastes, including packaging paper, are composted, the chemicals and toxins in the materials can be released into the environment,". 
• Instead of focusing on the difficult task of re-using (or recycling) materials not initially designed for a second and third life. 
• They suggest that we are in need of an industrial re-evolution in which we eliminate the concept of waste instead design products and systems that can provide nourishment for something new at the end of their useful lives. 
• Cradle to Cradle in Use: 
• Buildings that, similar to trees, produce more energy than they consume and purify their own waste water. 
• Products that, when their useful lives are over, do not become useless waste but can be tossed onto the ground to decompose and become food for plants and animals and nutrients for the soil or that can return to industrial cycles to supply high-quality raw materials for new products. 
• Transportation that improves the quality of life while delivering goods and services. 
• A world of abundance, not one of limits, pollution, and waste.

Natural Capitalism - page.24 - 25

• There are economists, environmentalists, and scientists who argue that respecting the environment and being social responsible can actually increase a company's profitability. Natural capitalism (Little Brown and Company, 1999) by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovings and Hunter Lovings is full of tangible examples of how businesses can thrive by achieving a balance between life and commerce. 
• Biomimicry reduces wasteful output of materials; can be accomplished by redesigning industrial or biological lines. 
• The problem with green washing: 
• More consumers begin to make purchases based at least partially on a company's values, this can be quite tempting for businesses to hype their commitment to environmental or social causes simply in the hopes of bettering their bottom line. 
• Green washing is a concern for both consumers and activists, with the latter worried that consumers who feel burned by green companies may turn their backs on an evolving industry. 
• In early as 1995, Joe Entine wrote an article for the Utne Reader titled "Green Washing" in which he expressed concern that the dramatic increase in "cause-related marketing might lead to green practices being replaced by green washing." 
• Ermine suggests that transparency, openness, and honesty are the ways to combat green washing and are the qualities that customers should look for from the brands, products, and services that they use. 
• The best weapon against green washing is informed purchasing, coupled with knowledge and curiosity. 

Sustainable Motivators - page. 26 - 27

• People become more environmentally and socially conscious for many reasons, and concern for the environment isn't at the top of everyone's list. 
• Some people have ethical concerns about employee's work conditions, others wish to avoid risk, and many worry about the state of the world children will live in. 
• Sonora Beam, principal of Digital Hive EcoLogical Design, suggests that sustainability is about pragmatism as well as idealism. "Negative or punishing messages aren't a real motivator for behaviour change."  
• Managing Reputation and Brand Value: 
• Reputation has a real financial value in today's market. People often purchase a company's products and services because they trust the company and believe the company is a force for good in the world. The company's brand is associated with positive ideas, values and feelings in the mind of consumer. 
• Protecting the right to operate: 
• Companies that are socially and environmentally responsible earn the public's trust. 

Chapter 3: The Science and Practice of Sustainable Design - page.40 - 41

• Image on page 41 - Links in the supply chain of paper. 

Sustainable Packaging - page. 102

• Packaging has a rather short history. It is only in the past 100 years that we started to use prepackaged goods on a larger scale. 
• Good packaging has improved people's lives. Without contemporary packaging, we would be even less able to feed the growing world population. 
• While packaging can solve problems, it can generate new problems. Creating packaging wastes and destroys valuable resources, energy, and materials. Packaging pollutes the world. 
• Packaging engineers choose the technology and the materials. 
• Controllers make decisions about the costs of packaging. 
• Marketing and sales people want the packaging to be attractive. 
• The European Packaging Directive is one such example - Under this directive, industries are forced to reduce the amount of packaging and improve recycling methods. 
• But at the the same time, other directives require additional packaging for hygienic reasons. 
• E.g - Some small items will be put into big packaging just to accommodate the mandatory information texts prescribed by consumer protection laws.
• The Problems with Questions:
• Customers did not often ask for sustainable solutions in their package design. The client insisted on using a materials that fulfilled the public's expected cliché of ecology, and the final solution looked ecological, but it was not sustainable at all. It was a lie and fake. 
• e.g. People often think that a glass bottle is a more eco-friendly and sustainable container for liquids than a coated cardboard box. 
• Glass is heavy and needs a lot of energy to manufacture and transport to stores and then back to be reused or recycled. Before a bottle can be reused it has to be cleaned, again using energy, water and chemicals. 
• Glass is used in packaging lasts forever, while the contents inside usually has an expiration date of less than two months. 
• Coated cardboard packaging is usually used once, then thrown away. Cardboard is a little bit better than glass. It is major is finding a better recycling process for coated cardboard. 
• Packaging is a complex system, and it isn't limited to the container on the shelf of a supermarket. 
• In packaging, one has to think about reduction, reuse, and/or recycling. 

Better Question Equals Better Answers - page.104

• The difference between eco-friendly and sustainable. The eco-philosophy of the 1970s tries and still tries to save the world completely. 
• On the other hand, sustainability is a philosophy of compromise. When we damage the world and waste energy, it's harmful. 

Process Precedes Product - page.107

• Sustainable packaging design is the design of a process rather than the design of a product. The final graphics on the packaging are just decorations, not a design. 
• Bionics, a new science between biology and technology, can be a resource to help sort packaging problems. 
• Students studying at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland, proposed to breed and tame intelligent microbes to teach them how to shape packaging. 
• After the expiration date of the packed goods, the microbes would recycle the pack content themselves and it becomes humus (soil). 
• Ashes to ashes, earth to earth. 

Chapter 4: Living and Working Sustainably - page.114

• There is no one right way to work sustainably. It depends on local conditions, on the resources available, and on the specifications for a particular job. 
• Increasingly, it is only use of environmental labelling that allows a viewer to tell whether something has been produced using preferable production practices ad with social consciousness in mind. 

Viola Eco-graphic Design - page.115 - 116

• Based in Melbourne, Australia, Viola Eco-Graphic Design is devoted to best practices in ecologically sustainable design. 
• Viola demonstrates that visually sophisticated graphic design doesn't have to "cost the earth." 
• There is a strong "values fit" with organisations that have an environmental, cultural, or community focus. 
• Carlyle emphasises that when engaging in sustainable design, designers are no longer limited to making work that is any different visually or has a "grass roots" looks.
• If you look at an ecologically-produced piece, it will often look like every other job." Carlilie says. "It was the choices made in the early stages-such as stock and printer selection - that make the piece sustainable." 
• Carlyle believes sustainability has reached a tipping point in the public's consciousness. 
• It is Carlile's opinion that in the very near future sustainable thinking and a working knowledge of responsible production will be an absolute must for designers.

NAU - page.134

• A growing number of businesses have been founded on sustainable principles. This allows them to build on core concepts such as environmental responsibility and social conscience from the beginning. 
• The high-performance clothing company, Nau, is one of these. 
• Based in Portland, Oregon, Nau ess born with sustainability as part of its mission. 
• Deserving to Exist
• Nau is lean and has the manoeuvrability to bend the brand to the company's social environmental ethics. Its talented in-house designers are just as concerned about yje sustainable production of building materials, clothing tags, and packaging as they are about growing a successful business. 

Redesign of the Green Mao Website and Promotion Materials - page. 172

• All of Green map System's 400+ locally-led Green Map projects are unique in their perspective, and while they use the same set of icons to highlight green living, natural, social, and cultural resources, each map has its own look and feel. 

Resources - page. 184

• GreenBlue - Founded by Cradle to Cradle authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart, GreenBlue is now an autonomous nonprofit institute that helps professional communities creates practical solutions, resources, and opportunities for implementing sustainability. They are great resource if you are dealing with packaging or work for a large corporation that can afford to join their corporate partnerships. Also see Sustainable Packaging Coalition, which is an industry working group spinoff of GreenBlue. 
• Japan for Sustainability - This website, which is available in both English and Japanese, is not graphic design specific, but it i s run by dedicated group pf people who are very good about putting interested parties in touch with each other and giving general information  about sustainability in Japan. www.japanfs.org
• Lovely as a Tree - Based in England, this website seeks to provides the answers to what a graphic designer needs to know to be more environmentally aware. It provides a great interactive print finder feature that lets users choose by type of service as well as location. www.lovelyasatree.com 

OUGD601 | Packaging Research - 'Why Shrink-Wrap a Cucumber?: The Complete Guide to Environmental Packaging' by Laurel Miller & Stephen Aldridge

Miller, Laurel & Aldridge, Stephen. 'Why Shrink-Wrap a Cucumber? : The Complete Guide to Environmental Packaging Paperback'. Laurence King; 01 edition. 1st October, 2012.

Introduction - page.6 to 8

• Packaging has to a large extent helped shape the world in which we live. 
• It enables us to pursue a lifestyle rich convenience and choice that allows us to enjoy. 
• Relatively little cost, high-quality goods from across the world, safe in knowledge that they will be fresh, undamaged and uncontaminated. 
• However, convenience comes at a price.
• Packaging has come to be seen as the epitome of wastefulness and excess. 
• In reality it is the only visible remnant of a string of energy and resource hungry processes that contribute to creating the goods we buy. 
• When consumers buy a product, they often do not think about: raw materials, irrigation, energy, fuel and pollution. 
• Packaging is a concern to the environment. 
• Recycling process encourages consumers to be unfair judgemental. 
• Good packaging = recycling bin // Bad packaging = waste bin.
• Green is in one senses simply another word for sustainable, but the political area (and it is a political word) it extends to global environment protection, support for a low-carbon economy and social responsibility. 
• Bioregionalism - promotes local trading and agriculture above sourcing goods from the other side of the world and is key area in green philosophy. 
• Sustainability - in context of the environment, is the ability to replace the resources used in a product's manufacture, and so ultimately make a neutral or positive contribution to the environment. Creates additional energy material acquires during its production, harvesting, conversion and transportation, creating truly sustainable packaging (not a realistic goal). 
• Environmentally friendly = 'less environment damaging' 

Making Progress - page.10 to 11

• It's branding power is unquestionable, and it can also be functional, protective, informative, creative, even witty. 
• People's concern is now keenly and rightly focused on protecting the environment, but in the past other issues, like food safety, contamination, security, even open-ability, have been routine public preoccupations that frequently made headlines in the national press. 
• Designers do not hp out of their way to create waste, but they have to make realistic decisions about product protection, cost, transportation, cost, protection and merchandising, and often have to work within existing packaging systems. 
• Many manufacturers approve with cutting back their packaging as possible, if it only reduce costs. 
• For example - Easter egg packaging in the UK, have environmental pressures from government and public alike have in effect given them permission to suspend mutual competition in manufacturing over presented products, and return to saner levels of packaging and more realistic manufacturing costs. 

Chapter 1 : Packaging and the Environment - page.12 to 18

• 'Packaging is a reflection of our consumer society and to a large extent it has helped shape the world we live in. It helps us transport vast quantities of goods from continent to continent and town to town. It preserves and protects our food from contamination. It allows us to inhabit the convenience culture, which or evades every aspect of modern life. It adds value and texture to the products we buy.'
• What is packaging and why do we need it? The positives of packaging: physical protection, tampering, prevent pilfering, extent shelf life, visual appeal, basic product information and handling. 
• When convenience trumps necessity
• Each convenience innovation brings more packaging and sandwiches, because of their success, bring more than most. With worker's lunchtimes catered fro by retailers and takeaway outlets, the lunch box is now mainly relegated to school children. 

Global warming - page. 20 to 27

• 'It is almost universally accepted that climate change is happening and that it is happening as a result of human activity. Most people are familiar with the potential effects of greenhouse gases, such as cardon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, which traps the sun's rays with the result has the earth gradually heats up.'
• 'Man as consumer and global warming' 
• 'All the evidence points towards human activity as the primary cause of global warming, yet we continue to overproduce and waste our ever more precious global resources. We all consume vastly more than we did 20 years ago. As developing countries like China and India grow wealthier, more pressure is put on diminishing food and energy resources.'
• In the context of the debate about global warming, and the human contribution towards it, it has become a symbol of wastefulness. Not without good reason. Packaging involves the production, conversion, transportation and disposal of vast quantities of materials such as card and paper, plastic, glass, aluminium and steel. At each stage of their journey, from cradle to grave, greenhouse gases are created. 

• 'We are at the start of adopting a globally sustainable approach to living. Much is still to be done, but atlas we recognise many of the issues. Advances may come with new technology, materials, greener retailing, developments in recycling, legislation or even consumer attitudes.'
• To a large extent, therefore, the ability to effect change will depend on the viewpoint of the three key players: the retailer and manufacturers, the consumers and the legislator. 
• Broadening the sustainable approach
• Much more transit packaging is now reusable and corrugated-card outers are often replaced by multi trip plastic containers. 
• Consumers - Consumers fall into two main categories: those who do not like packaging but will not let it change their buying habits, and those whose purchasing choices can be affected by product packaging. We will call them average consumer and environmentally active consumers. 
• Environmentally active consumers
• They may use home-grown or seasonal produce rather than food that has travelled long distances, and perhaps favour local stores and markets. 
• Seek out FairTrade goods.
• Will not support convenience products such as bottled water and disposable nappies. 
• Concerned about the damage of packaging that affects the the environment. 

Chapter 2 : The Search for Environmental solutions - page. 38 to 42

• 'There should not be a conflict between encouraging people to make choices that are more environmentally friendly and designing for the retail environment. The challenge is knowing how best to make use of the materials and understanding the impact their disposal can have on the environment.'
• 'Reduce, reuse, recycle succinctly encapsulates the best way to both design for the environment and care for it as a consumer. It is an abbreviated version of the waste hierarchy, which is widely acknowledged to describe the full range of options for waste: reduce, reuse, recycle, recover energy, landfill. 
• Reduce - 'Easily the best design approach is to use materials wisely and frugally, to avoid having to expend energy and resources on unnecessary packaging. Even recycled uses energy and releases carbon dioxide, and reliance on landfill is not only workable in the long term but also creates its own environmental issues through leakage and methane emissions. 
• The most effective way of reducing packaging are: 
• Reducing thickness of materials - lightweight 
• Considering products should be packed differently 
• Reducing overall size  
• avoiding unnecessary parts and materials. 
• Is it really necessary to shrink-wrap a cucumber? 
• One of the commonest examples of perceived over packaging, which crops up time and again, is the humble cucumber. 
• In the UK, the Daily Mail pursued a high -profile campaign to cajole supermarkets to remove shrink-wrapping from cucumbers, striking a blow for common sense and people power. 
• Necessary - wrapped cucumber lasts more than three times as long as an unwrapped one: harvested, washed, transported and delivered it will stay fresh until the plastic is cut, and loses 1.5 percent of its weight through evaporation after 14 days, whereas an exposed cucumber loses 3.5 percent of its weight after only three days. 
• Shrink-wrapping means the energy-consuming process from harvesting to delivery does not have to be repeated so often, and less product ends up in landfill where it will emit damaging methane. 
• The Daily Mail's nationwide campaign ultimately persuaded a major supermarket chai, the Co-op, to comply by designing transit packaging for cucumbers that does the same job as the shrink-wrap. The solution is a large, plastic, breathable liner in cardboard box, which is claimed to keep cucumbers fresh for up to 40 days. In practice, these cucumbers do not last long as shrink-wrapped ones, because as soon as they are put on-shelf their rate of deterioration accelerates and they continue to deterioration in the purchaser's fridge. 
• Can designer's learn anything from this? 
• The cucumber and food waste controversy has sparked discussion about the ways to store cucumbers and food in general, which can provide clues for designers
• One solution stands out as being particularly interesting. This is to keep the cucumbers upright up right in the refrigerator door with the stalk and immersed in water. 
• Compared to other fruits, a cucumber draws water through its stem to replace the water it rapidly loses through its skin, so the solution to the perceived over packaging of cucumbers may be as simple as selling them like flowers, from a bucket, instead of sleeving them. 
• The cucumber example is significant because it demonstrated that how consumers perceive materials is important in environmental retailing. Some materials, such as glass, hardly seem to register on their environmental radar, while others, particularly plastics, are never off it. 

• Reuse - is often promoted as an important way for consumers to cut down on unnecessary waste. Certainly, it is convenient to buy a fruit drink and discard or recycle the pet bottle when it is empty, but if the bottle is kept and refilled from concentrate until it is worn out. 
• Recycle - the benefits of recycling - reducing energy use and carbon output, and freeing-up space in increasingly pressurised landfill - are easily understood and most people are happy to contribute, even if only because household waste is increasingly measured. It is not unusual for the amount that is discarded to be limited by the number of rubbish bags allowed per household, or by weight limits or by controls on different categories of waste. 

Chapter 3 : Designing creative environmentally friendly packaging - page.74 to 77

• 'There is increasing pressure from client to produce environmentally friendly packaging solutions. So much so that it is rare for packaging designers to receive a project that does not include 'environmentally friendly' as one its main criteria. Clients feel the pressure from both government and public opinion, but they are also concerned to do the right thing. Of course, there are those who see greening-up as a marketing opportunity, and this is acceptable provided it does not lead to disingenuous solutions that mislead the public. A packaging designer should focus on creative solutions that are profitable for the client, but at the same time take care to pursue the greenest solutions possible. 
• Brand Recognition and ownership - first and foremost, packaging must be fit for purpose. It has to protect and preserve the product it contains through all stages of transportation, in the retail environment and right through to the time the consumer opens it. Hopefully, a pack will do much more than this by adding value to the brand with engaging graphics, a dramatic pack structure or improved functionality. 
• Ownership comes through creating distinctive design elements in packaging, but from a manufacturing and marketing perspective there are persuasive arguments for uniformity, and the structural design of packaging has always been subject to restrictions. Most packs involves some sort of factory process to lesser or greater degree, and the most efficient ones for packaging, shipping and retailing are based on a uniformly inflexible pack structure. 

page. 78

• The design process - designers (and specifiers) may have different approaches to a project, but both want to produce work they can be proud of while keeping their client happy. They are used to working to detailed briefs, finding sophisticated ways to interpret the client's requirements and, if necessary, are prepared to argue for solutions that push the brief in unexpected direction. 
• Less is more - less is more is easily the most important rule for designing environmentally friendly packaging, but one that is all too easily forgotten. People tend to focus on recycling as an environmental strategy, but it is far better to use less material in the first place. page. 104.
• Use recyclable materials - recycling is clearly an extremely important way of reducing our carbon footprint, but local closed-loop recycling is much better than what is often called downcycling - sending materials long distances to be reprocessed into low-grade products and materials. page. 114