It’s been more than ten years since UPS launched the Reusable Next Day Air Envelope, a bleach-free, re-usable envelope made from 100 percent recycled fiber, representative of the shipping industry’s first large-scale initiative to produce more environmentally-sound packaging.

Since then, organizations committed to the environment, including The Alliance for Environmental Innovation, have continued challenging major shipping companies to improve their methods of packaging in order to make the transportation industry more environmentally compatible. And, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, the results have been drastic, resulting in an overall decrease in the weight of packaging material, as well as an increase in post-consumer recycled content (envelopes, boxes, and tubes).

In 2005, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), a group dedicated to a more robust environmental vision for packaging, published version 1.0 of their Definition of Sustainable Packaging, a campaign encouraging other industries, such as those in the electronics sector, to implement the kinds of ‘green policy’ that companies such as UPS had been incorporating for close to a decade.

Recently, in an effort to keep up with and initiate new trends in “green industry,” the world’s largest electronics manufacturers have been publicizing their own corporate initiatives to ensure their packaging methods are environmentally safe.

This past year, Greenpeace published a list of the top electronics leaders in “green” policies. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Phillips, and Apple ranked among the top ten. Upon close examination of each corporation’s sustainable packaging policies, several trends in “green” packaging become apparent, trends that are both beneficial to the consumer and profitable to the manufacturers.  

Smaller packages

In 2006, Nokia introduced compact packaging, a conservation-friendly method of packaging and shipping that quickly became the industry standard. Within two years Nokia reduced the amount of packaging materials and user guides by nearly 60 percent, which, according to Nokia’s Web site, saved them up to 100,000 tons of paper. This compact packaging method also affected transportation, reducing the number of trucks on the road by nearly 50 percent. In a similar effort to reduce the amount of trucks on the road, Apple also made it their goal to reduce the amount of packaging materials, thus decreasing the transportation flow without sacrificing output. With several changes in their design, Apple was able to show that efficient packaging results in fewer trucks, which helps reduce the overall emissions produced during transportation. The packaging utilized for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, for example, was 41 percent smaller than the previous generation MacBook, which allowed 50 percent more boxes to fit on each shipping pallet, resulting in fewer CO2 emissions.

Phillips Lighting Electronics (PLE), another trendsetter in sustainable packaging, has gone as far as to trademark one of their packaging methods. Thanks to their SmartMate packaging, PLE was able to reduce carton area by 60 percent, the environmental equivalent of saving 51 trees, reducing 11 homes worth of energy consumption, preventing the greenhouse gases generated by 16 cars, and eliminating one garbage truck load of waste from landfills annually.

Recyclable material

Size isn’t the only angle electronics leaders are taking in terms of green policy initiatives. Materials have proven just as important. Sony DADC, for example, recently introduced their trademarked product, Bend-it Green, an exclusive bendable disc packaging that incorporates environmentally friendly materials in not only the packaging itself, but the types of inks and adhesives used as well. The Bend-it Green package, which is compatible with CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs, is made from 100 percent recycled material, eco-friendly soya vegetable ink, eco-friendly glue, and a single piece of cardboard construction (no plastic), which makes recycling almost effortless.

Sony’s Bend-it Green packaging has proven so effective in reducing the carbon footprint within the music industry that it was recently recognized by Julie’s Bicycle, a UK-based music industry-led organization set up to recognize commitment to reducing green house gas emissions and promote environmental sustainability.

Nokia and Toshiba have also introduced recyclable materials into their packaging standards. Toshiba has made use of recyclable shock-absorbing foam, and more than 95 percent of Nokia’s packaging is made from renewable, paper-based materials, of which up to 60 percent is recycled content.

Biodegradable materials

In May 2007, Greenpeace launched a successful campaign that brought to light the necessity for more green initiatives among the major electronics leaders, particularly Apple Corporation. In response to the Greenpeace campaign, Steve Jobs stated that Apple would make it a goal to be ahead of most of its competitors in green policy. And, in June 2008, Apple announced that the new iPhone 3G was to be outfitted entirely in green packaging, meaning Apple had ordered millions of potato starch paper trays from PaperFoam, a Dutch company, not only reducing Apple’s carbon output by nearly 90 percent, but creating a shipping tray made entirely from a natural resource, as opposed to the visually appealing but all-too-common Styrofoam.

These three trends-size reduction, green materials, and biodegradables-as initiated by some of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers are rapidly becoming the packaging industry’s standard, affecting both production and transportation too.  wt



Steven Ramirez is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals. He currently teaches English and Literature in the Chicago area.