The eCommerce sector is more competitive than ever. Retailers have been struggling to keep up with demand as online sales skyrocket, but can they adopt and maintain an eco-friendly approach?

Eco-friendly packaging can significantly reduce non-recyclable and non-biodegradable waste, slashing businesses’ carbon footprint. So what are the hallmarks of eco-friendly packaging, and how else can it benefit eCommerce companies?

What Is Eco-Friendly Packaging?

Simply put, eco-friendly packaging is a broad term that describes all forms of packaging that are created with the environment in mind. They usually have one of the following properties or features:

• Recycled — Plastic, cardboard and many other common materials can be processed and repurposed to create a wealth of effective packaging supplies. The main benefit here is that the lifespan of the original materials is dramatically extended, meaning less raw materials need to be produced.
  
• Sustainably Sourced — Packaging materials produced from renewable sources are far better for the environment than oil-based plastics or other synthetic products. As an example, paper sourced from managed forests helps counteract deforestation.
  
• Recyclable — When packaging is made from recyclable materials, consumers can easily dispose of packaging responsibly at home or at various recycling points. Their packaging could take on many forms or be used to create more packaging.
• Biodegradable — Packaging made from natural materials often has biodegradable qualities. Paper and cardboard are some of the most natural packaging materials that degrade naturally over a short period and without leaking harmful chemicals back into the environment.
• Compostable — Some forms of eco-friendly packaging can be composted commercially or by the end-user at home. The benefit is that packaging doesn’t contribute to landfill waste, but composting also improves soil quality and suppresses plant diseases.

The Benefits of Using Eco-Friendly Packaging

For many consumers, the use of eco-friendly packaging is more of an expectation than an option. Studies have shown that consumers are even willing to pay more for products that are packaged sustainably, proving that a little investment in the right packaging can go a long way. So how could eco-friendly packaging benefit online retailers?

1. Waste Reduction

Packaging waste comes in many forms. Overpackaging products is a pet peeve for many consumers who will instantly assume that little care or thought has been taken in the packaging process. This wastes a tremendous amount of materials and leaves customers feeling frustrated. Waste can also be a problem when the wrong size, shape or type of packaging is used to ship products. Using packaging that’s far too big for the products it containers wastes packaging supplies and could lead to damaged deliveries.

2. Improved Recycling Rates

The latest recycling rate for British households is approximately 46%. Still, there’s plenty of room for improvement, especially if the UK wants to catch up with the likes of Germany, whose recycling rate is currently 10% higher. For more recycling to happen, recyclable packaging needs to replace non-recyclable plastics and other synthetic materials. This is an excellent opportunity for eCommerce businesses to replace any non-recyclable offerings with more environmentally beneficial alternatives.

3. Reduced Packaging Costs

Paper and cardboard packaging is widely available and incredibly cost-effective. It’s inexpensive to produce and even more affordable when bought in bulk, especially when compared to the price of plastic packaging that doesn’t have any of the eco-friendly benefits. Cardboard packaging is also incredibly versatile and can be used for various products or different shapes and sizes. 

4. Enhanced Functionality

The humble, brown cardboard box has a lot to offer, especially when paired with paper-based void-fill packaging. Cardboard is lightweight yet durable, meaning package weights can be slashed. This can help dramatically reduce shipping costs without compromising the quality or integrity of the packaging itself. 

5. Better Customer Experiences

If you’re an online-only business, your packaging needs to send all the right messages about your brand. First impressions are essential, and since your packaging will be the first thing your customers see and engage with, their experience needs to be flawless. Consumers prefer paper-based packaging over plastic or other synthetics, so an excellent place to start is with paper or cardboard packaging that’s naturally recyclable and biodegradable.

Is Eco-Friendly Packaging Important for Online Retailers?

Since high-quality eco-friendly packaging offers so much in terms of performance and is much preferred by consumers, it’s an obvious choice for businesses operating in the highly competitive eCommerce arena. Not only does it benefit the environment, but it can significantly enhance consumers’ perception of companies operating in this space, generating brand awareness, loyalty and eventually, brand advocacy.

If you’re here, then you’ll likely know a little about the market for marketing and you’re either considering using a B2B agency or you’re about to find out that you’re considering using a B2B agency. You have to know about what’s available and stay up to date, which is why we’ve put this together to help you make informed choices that will have you on the road to success.

What is B2B Branding?

B2B stands for business to business, meaning that businesses are promoting or selling products or services to other businesses or groups. It’s distinct from B2C marketing, meaning business to consumer marketing, whereby the business markets their goods to a consumer. As a result of this different target audience and the different needs and preferences, the strategies, concepts and branding that are used in B2B are also distinct.

B2B is necessary when a company’s product or service is required by another company in order to improve or maintain its operations. Consequently, the first company has to present an image that’s appealing, effective and successful in terms of aesthetic as well as service, the goods themselves and the brand. The brand is what appeals to the target market, retains them and assures the success of the business, which makes it imperative.

How can a B2B branding agency help?

The overly simple answer is they help with the branding. They understand why it’s important and how it can impact the success of the business, so the B2B branding agency protects that success by ensuring they do a good job of the branding. A great example of a B2B branding agency is Tiga UK, who provide the expertise needed to market to other businesses.

They help by creating a strong, noteworthy, impactful brand, most specifically by using a diverse team of professionals, who rely on their knowledge and experience to offer incredibly valuable input. It’s the experience and the knowledge across multiple fields that a branding agency puts on the table. It’s also the fact that all of this resides under one roof and it can all be in-house, making the process faster, less stressful and more effective. Taking some of the negative emotion out of a very important sector is another benefit of a B2B branding agency – someone who knows how to thrive with pressure and consistently produces excellent results shoulders the responsibility of the branding. In practice, the way they do this is by offering a set of services.

What type of services are offered across B2B branding?

• Brand Strategy – This means the way that a company has planned and executed the way they appear and what they will do to impact how they want the public to perceive them. It’s important because of the impact this has on consumers, their behaviour and their actions, because it makes a key difference in the success of the company.

• Branding Audits – What this means is evaluating the position of the company in the marketplace, its strengths and weaknesses and how to develop those things. Typically, it covers internal branding, external branding and customer experience, and the goal is to get a true reflection of where the company stands with itself, with its competitors and with its customers. This is imperative because a consistent brand builds brand equity, and with brand equity comes customer retention, word of mouth referrals, and less money on attracting new customers, among other things.

• Touch Point Analysis – Touch points are the actions of the company that ‘touch’ the consumer at each point on their journey from encountering the brand to choosing it to developing brand loyalty. Analysis involves identifying, assessing and prioritising types of interactions through a variety of approaches. The touch points affect loyalty, brand equity, and profitability, which means analysing them to establish how to be most effective and impactful is a valuable tool for improvement.

• Creative Identity – This is essentially the unique selling point, or USP, the way the brand defines itself and the way people define the brand when referring to it. Whether that be the aesthetic, a specific sound, an iconic advert or a well-known product, it’s essential that this is a positive thing, because it’ll be the first thing the target audience associates with the company. The goal of branding agencies is to make sure that thing is positive, obviously, and the image they want to present.

• Research – Research involves gathering information about the subject, the product or service, and the target market in order to develop an understanding, which is then used to inform the branding. It’s the foundation of any branding because it determines what tactic or concept to use to appeal to the consumer, and the success of the company is dependent on the appeal of the brand.

In short, a B2B branding service offers the benefit of its knowledge and experience in developing and maintaining a company and can be the integral factor in determining the success or failure of the branding.

As most finance experts know by now, the ecological concerns of private citizens have been influencing their investments for decades now. It’s come to the point that companies purposely engage in greenwashing to present themselves as being more eco-conscious in hopes of increasing sales. That should be enough to tell us that consumers and investors alike are ready to see a new kind of economic model take the place of the one that caused the environmental concerns we are facing today.

Why Is Everyone Talking About Circular Economy?

We’ve all seen that a linear economy puts stress on the planet by stimulating climate change and waste accumulation. On top of that, it presents us with several financial disadvantages, including the fact that the price of raw materials will go up as we run out of resources. So at this point, investing in businesses that support the linear economy is a bad financial decision. Essentially, that economic model is quickly becoming a sinking ship.

Luckily, we already have a valid alternative on the horizon. The circular economy model has been around for decades. The concept prioritizes regenerative resources including materials that would have otherwise been considered waste. Proponents of the system hope to reduce waste or perhaps eliminate it, allowing nature to recover from decades if not centuries of abuse.

While many individual people share the values of this system, change can’t happen if the big players decide not to participate. But if there’s one thing big corporations understand, it’s the language of finance. If we can start investing in companies that support a circular economy on a wider scale, more businesses will make the changes we want to see.

For what it’s worth, socially responsible investing has already started changing the tide. The financing of the companies that support circular economy has increased rapidly over the past few years. According to reports from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, public equity funds that are focused on the circular economy have grown from 300 million dollars at the end of 2019 to over 8 billion dollars at the end of June 2021.

How Are Companies Supporting Circular Economy?

So how could a business land on one of those ESG funds that stress the importance of the environmental, social, and governance responsibilities of investments? A few examples come to mind.

Companies like IKEA have taken strides in the fight against the usage of raw materials, and plastics, in particular. In large part, IKEA has transitioned to renewable and recycled resources. Moreover, it’s even offering buy-back programs to keep its products from clogging up landfills. And since plastic is particularly slow to degrade, the company has also committed to using recycled plastics for the large-scale production of household appliances.

But of course, many companies have branded themselves as being sustainable by using similar campaigns. That doesn’t mean that they’re interested in enabling a circular economy. So there have to be other incentives to invest, aside from following positive optics.

The Benefits of Investing In Companies That Support Circular Economy

As we have previously mentioned, investing in companies that aren’t sustainable is starting to look like a really poor financial decision. After all, it all comes down to risk and reward. With companies that participate in the linear economy model, there’s a risk that the resources will dry up. On top of that, the cost of raw material and production can quickly overwhelm the potential profits, as has been the case in the automotive industry.

The negative public perception of wasteful companies and industries has also led to legislative solutions. For example, the EU has famously pledged to ban single-use plastic and transition to mostly recycled packaging by 2029. That will certainly affect companies that wish to operate within the EU.

Simply put, if companies manufacture products that don’t comply with EU regulations, they will be missing out on that part of the market. That means that their sales will drop, resulting in dropping stock prices too. So really, investing in companies that are closing the loop is the only thing we can do.

As we learned from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, there are three key benefits of transitioning to a circular economic model. Namely, doing so is:

• A fantastic way to get financing, particularly since many governments and NGOs are now offering incentives to “go green”
• Less risky than engaging in practices that support a linear economy
• A sustainable option for financiers who prioritize ESG investing values

The investors can also experience these benefits. After all, the good luck of a company or investment fund tends to trickle up to the financiers.

How Investment Companies Can Jump on the Circular Economy Bandwagon

In Financing the Circular Economy, the fourth chapter explains how financial services firms can capitalize on the growing popularity of the concept of a circular economy. The main investment opportunities they might explore include:

• Launching or investing in passive and active public equity funds that benefit from the circular economy
• Issuing or investing in bonds or loans to allow companies to transition to a circular economic model
• Supporting sustainable products and services through private equity
• Investing in innovative sustainable production solutions through venture capital
• Funding projects that boost sustainable infrastructure and public services

In the above report, you’ll find many examples of investment companies seizing these opportunities, and more! Even Alphabet — aka Google — is putting billions of dollars towards sustainability bonds. And many other international conglomerates are doing the same thing.

All of these companies know what we’ve been trying to prove here — that circular economy is the future. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can start investing in it to bring it to its full potential. Ultimately, this new economic model is our chance to redeem ourselves and fix the damage we did to our planet. And if we can increase our profit while doing that — why would we wait?