Like designer clothing and accessories, sustainability has been around in its many forms for some time now – and consumers are finding it increasingly difficult to tell the genuine article from a fake.
If many shoppers are happy to flaunt a designer logo, while being fully aware of the item’s price and likely origins, they are less understanding about brand owners making environmental claims which are, similarly, too good to be true.
Some in the beauty sector are setting out to put the science back into the highly fashionable topic of the circular economy. Last year saw the creation of the Sustainable Packaging Initiative for Cosmetics (SPICE), which was able to field no fewer than 11 members, including co-founders L’Oréal and international environmental consultancy Quantis, by the time of the official Paris launch in May. Members include Avon Products, Clarins Group, Coty, L’Occitane en Provence, LVMH, Shiseido and Sisley.
The initiative is open to supply chain partners and German-headquartered Heinz Glas joined the SPICE line-up in September. The glass group’s Sustainability Manager, Thomas Eidloth, draws a parallel between potentially misleading claims regarding the environmental credentials of packaging and the damage caused by similar sustainability claims in other sectors: vehicle emissions and palm oil, for example.
As he puts it: “One cosmetics brand owner told me, ‘we hate greenwashing like the devil’.” This attitude does not rest on some abstract moral high ground but on the well-documented fact that in today’s world, environmental posturing can come back not just to haunt you but to bite you.
At the time of the SPICE launch, Philippe Bonningue, Group Global Director of Sustainable Packaging & Development at L’Oréal, said in a statement: “Beyond the development of a robust methodology of environmental footprint assessment, SPICE will ultimately increase the eco-design of our products and will provide the clarity consumers expect to help them make more sustainable choices.”
There has been more recent evidence that leading brand owners are taking a much keener interest in the sustainability of their packaging. In December came the announcement that Chanel is investing in Finnish packaging supplier Sulapac, a manufacturer of rigid and semi-rigid plastics alternatives formed from a combination of wood chips and binders from renewable sources.
Sulapac CEO and co-founder Suvi Haimi tells Cosmetics Business: “The starting point for creating the binders can be any biomass with sugar content, from sugarcane waste itself to potato peelings. But it’s very important that the binder should be biodegradable and microplastics-free.”
For now, the Chanel move seems to benull a statement of intent rather than anything more strategic, since the luxury brand will be one of many investors with only a minority holding in the business, as Haimi explains.
Chanel’s investment highlights the particular supply chain sensitivities around oil-based polymers, with public and media concern over ocean plastics having increased markedly since 2017 in markets such as the UK.
Clarity in glass
At market research company GlobalData, Consumer Analyst Iliyana Mesheva says: “US-based brand Tata Harper is an example of how a brand uses glass for the majority of its packaging.” Where different materials are required, such as in tubes, the company tends to use biopolymers derived from renewable resources such as cornstarch, rather than petroleum-based plastics.
But the use of glass may not be enough in itself to satisfy more demanding customers.
At Vetroplas Packaging in the UK, Sales Director Simon Dix says: “During 2018, we saw a significant rise in the number of enquiries about environmentally friendly packaging.”
One specific initiative saw Italian producer Eurovetrocap, for which Vetroplas acts as a distributor, launch its Licata jar, boasting 75% post-consumer recycled (PCR) glass (see below).
Part of the thinking behind the SPICE initiative, as the point made by L’Oréal’s Bonningue makes clear, is the need for “robust methodology” in assessing different sustainability options. When it comes to glass, one of the less contentious claims is around lighter weights. Heinz Glas, for example, now offers standard ranges of jars and bottles with 45% less glass than more conventional packs.
But the use of PCR cullet and in-house cullet in container glass is a much thornier topic. Eidloth at Heinz Glas pins down the starting point here: “With glass cullet in Europe, the market is organised in a certain way, so there is no high-quality stream, for example.
Genuine PCR material is sourced externally and can contain everything from different coloured bottles to window glass. The quality falls as you add more of it, so that at 10%, it is acceptable for most brands. But by the time you get to 25% PCR, you’re likely to have constant quality issues.”
In-house cullet has none of these quality problems, and is sustainable in the sense that it is a ‘waste product’ that is being reused. While proportions of PCR could vary between 10% and 25%, proportions of in-house cullet are likely to be 20% or 25%, says Heinz Glas.
In fact, the real focus should probably be elsewhere. “If you utilise 10% PCR cullet, for example, you are only likely to save 2.5-3% of your input energy,” Eidloth states. “The opportunity to reduce your carbon footprint really rests on your energy source.”
Glass smelting has traditionally relied on gas-fired furnaces, and to a great extent still does so. Heinz Glas is among those utilising increasing amounts of electric power to supplement gas, and has been working to source ‘carbon-free’ electricity for some of its production sites.
Genuine PCR glass can contain everything from different coloured bottles to window glass
Plastics & paper
When it comes to plastics, GlobalData identifies “anti-plastics sentiment” as a global phenomenon. With some countries considering different forms of tax on single-use plastics, the company’s 2018 third-quarter consumer survey asked what effect such a tax might have on buying habits. Close to 80% of consumers polled said they would buy less of these products or stop buying them altogether.
But many brands in the toiletries and personal care sector depend on the material for their tubes, bottles and jars. A conscious shift towards design-for-recycling, combined with improving collection and reprocessing infrastructure, means that brand owners increasingly have a strong environmental message here, too.
In the UK, Vetroplas is a supplier of tubes from CTL Packaging, including its injection-moulded, in-mould-labelled ESTube. “We’ve seen an uplift in sales of the ESTube,” says Dix. “The green side to this is very important, since this is a single-material polypropylene pack, from the cap to the label and the tube wall.”
Of course, whether a monomaterial pack of this sort is actually collected and recycled will depend on many local variables. “But a lot of brands still want to be able to offer something that is at least potentially recyclable,” he maintains.
With regard to recyclability and persistence in the environment, paper and board face few of the problems which beset plastics. WestRock-owned Multi Packaging Solutions (MPS) produces cartons, rigid boxes and other items in virgin or recycled stock.
“Many companies do favour virgin fibreboards, due to the cleaner finish and faster production speeds they provide,” Marketing Support Director Bob Houghton reports.
Given the positive consumer perceptions with regard to fibre-based packaging in general and its strong track record in recycling, the choice of virgin over recycled board is not, in general, viewed negatively.
That said, for brands with an explicitly ethical or sustainable positioning, the use of recycled board can complement other messaging. So, too, can other materials and decoration choices which encourage, rather than interfere with, recycling.
“We can offer more sustainable decorative print effects, such as cold-foil (instead of hot-foil) and aqueous coatings, so cartons or other packs are readily recyclable,” says Houghton.
MPS can also offer carton windows based on renewable resources in the form of non-oil-based plastics.
Meanwhile, he adds, reductions in the weight of paper and board packaging have been progressing for years, as much for cost as for environmental reasons, so this is seldom a concern for brand owners.
Complex packs, complex messages
Even in today’s climate, the logic of sustainability will not always carry the most weight. There are areas such as high value facial creams and serums, with airless and other types of product-specific dispensing, where packaging has become more, rather than less complex.
This in turn tends to make the pack less easy to recycle.
The example of glass shows that the demands of quality and sustainability can pull in different directions. “Glass recycling is a positive, of course, in a circular economy,” says Eidloth at Heinz Glas.
“But at the same time, all the brands want very high quality glass.”
For brands with an ethical positioning, the use of recycled board can complement other messaging
Dix at Vetroplas argues: “When you arrive at the level of some skin care brands, for example, and other luxury items, the green aspect seems to become less important.” But he acknowledges that this may change, with time. “The trend towards sustainable packaging could continue to grow to the point where it touches these types of products too.”
For Houghton at MPS, plastics may currently be in the firing line, but no user of any type of packaging can afford to be complacent. “Consumers are much more aware of non-sustainable and unnecessary packaging and will quickly inform the brand owner,” he says.
“Brands are increasingly considering what materials they use, whether facilities exist to recycle them and, for some products, whether the container has a secondary use.”
The next set of challenges could be around how to communicate more complex – but potentially more important – sustainability messages, such as energy usage and wider carbon footprint in glass production. Perhaps vloggers could take this task on too.
