Sustainability Isn’t a Single Answer — It Starts With the Right Questions
In a recent team meeting, someone asked a question that, on the surface, seemed to have an obvious answer:
“Is sustainability one of our key brand values?”
Of course, the answer was yes. But what followed was a conversation that’s long overdue in many companies, brands, and teams — a conversation about what sustainability actually means beyond the buzzword.
Too often, we reduce sustainability to a matter of material choice: paper vs. plastic, recyclable vs. compostable. We frame it as a binary — as if making the right choice is simply a matter of picking one option and calling it a day.
But if the solution were really that simple, we wouldn’t be where we are today — as an industry, an economy, or a society.
Ask Better Questions
Instead of starting with, “Is this recyclable?” or “Can we switch materials?”, we should first ask:
- What are we trying to pack?
- What does success look like — from protection and logistics to branding and end-user experience?
- What are the non-negotiables in performance, cost, and sustainability?
Only after mapping out these answers — your application window — should material selection even come into the conversation. Then you can look at available options, identify realistic optimizations, and assess how each decision aligns with your brand, operations, and impact goals.
And here’s the surprising part: in many cases, the most sustainable move may also be the most cost-effective. We just haven’t been framing the problem that way.
Functionality First — Then Optimize
Sustainability only works when the packaging works. If a solution looks good on paper but fails to protect the product, preserve freshness, or meet compliance needs, it’s not sustainable — it’s just expensive waste in disguise.
Functionality must come before optimization.
You can’t improve what doesn’t perform. Only once packaging meets its core requirements — protection, usability, compliance, communication — can you begin to refine materials, reduce weight, or streamline formats.
A fragile item in a sustainable pouch that tears in transit doesn’t deliver sustainability.
It delivers returns, damage, and waste.
A Simple Example: Rightsizing
In our recent supplier reviews across Europe, one issue kept showing up: over-sized packaging.
Think about a large, corrugated mailer used to ship a tiny roll of tape. That single oversized pack travels through an entire supply chain — from fulfillment center to last-mile delivery — touching resources, labor, storage, emissions, and customer perception along the way.
Now imagine switching to a smaller, better-fitting option. The benefits aren’t just environmental — they ripple across shipping costs, shelf space, storage efficiency, and the unboxing experience.
That’s not just sustainable. It’s smart business.
Beyond Silo-ed thinking
Too often, packaging decisions are made in isolation:
- Marketing wants a certain look.
- Procurement has a certain price brief.
- Operations want efficiency in-bound and outbound.
- Sustainability wants something that drives the set footprint targets.
Each team optimizes for its own KPI — and the result is a compromise that doesn’t work holistically. We need to think in systems, not silos.
Design choices affect fulfillment. Pack formats affect transportation. Material properties affect recyclability. Sustainability lives in the connections between decisions, not just in the spec sheet or marketing ads.
That means cross-functional collaboration across the value chain — design, sourcing, operations, logistics, compliance, and brand — with shared goals and shared metrics.
You can’t solve sustainability if decisions were made in a vacuum.
In Summary
If we want to make real progress on packaging sustainability, we have to stop asking single-answer questions.
It’s not about one material. It’s about the system.
It starts with context.
It depends on function.
And it only works if we design across the whole value chain
And As in any relationship we need to learn when to collaborate and when to compromise to excel.
So before asking, “Is this recyclable?” — ask, “What does this pack really need to do?”
Everything else flows from there.