4 Sustainable Packaging Websites to Help Your Brand Go Green

From reusable to recycled, add sustainability to your brand ethos with eye-catching and eco-friendly packaging

First impressions count—especially in the world of product design, where merchandising is a major opportunity to attract new customers.

Consumers are increasingly concerned about environmental protection and the fight against climate change, so sustainable packaging is much more than an aesthetic choice: it’s a statement.

Ready to invest in your brand values? In this article illustrator, designer, and Etsy-store expert Depeapa (@_depeapa) shares four sustainable packaging websites to consider when selecting your packaging.

What is sustainable packaging?

Sustainable packaging is any packaging that has a reduced environmental impact compared to non-sustainable alternatives. Many people mistakenly assume that the term is defined by whether a material can be recycled or not, but sustainable packaging goes much further. It requires looking at the entire supply chain to assess the environmental impact at every stage, from sourcing to end consumer use and disposal.

The criteria for sustainable packaging include:

- Safe and healthy for individuals and communities throughout its life cycle.

- Sourced, manufactured, transported, and recycled using renewable energy.

- Created using clean technologies.

- An option that gives consumers multiple options (recycling, compost, or reuse).

Why choose sustainable packaging?

Packaging is important because it embodies multiple challenges: there's the need to preserve the quality and identity of your brand, while also creating a symbolic space to connect with your customer.

When you choose sustainable packaging, your customers know that by shopping with you, they aren’t generating contaminating waste. Your by-products can be re-absorbed by nature, re-used, or your packaging has been created from recycled products.

Types of sustainable packaging

The types of packaging available from the following sites include:

- Compostable packaging. These are typically produced using a range of renewable plant-based materials and biopolymers. To obtain a home composting certificate, products must decompose between ninety to 180 days in a domestic composter in normal conditions.

- Recycled packaging. These are made out of plastic that has already been used, for example bags, bottles, or other common single-use plastics. Plastic is processed in a recycling facility and made available for re-use, duplicating its useful lifecycle.

- Reusable packaging. This kind of packaging is available for multiple re-use. While most packaging is designed for single-use and then recycled, reusable packaging can be used several times, and for different purposes.

Added value

Some of these brands also help you to support the environment directly, for example by planting a tree with every order, or by donating to an environmental protection organization. Sustainable packaging manufacturers often use labels to promote such actions, while saving you the extra logistics.

A way of integrating your brand into the circular economy

The circular economy is a strategy that aims to reduce our use of raw materials and waste production.

While the linear economy extracts, creates, and disposes, the circular economy creates, uses, and recycles. It’s about trying to maintain a cycle in which everything re-enters the supply chain instead of becoming new waste.

Inspirational Eco Packaging Websites

The four brands listed below will create sustainable packaging based on your design. Read on to learn the basics and check out the websites for more information about their philosophies and processes.

Noissue

Noissue is a sustainable provider of personalized packaging that offers compostable, recycled, and reusable packaging to manufacturers, brands, and companies of all kinds and sizes. Based in New Zealand, Noissue allows its customers to design their packaging online—uploading their logo, graphic designs, etc—then they take care of the rest. Their range includes business cards, packing tape, bags, boxes, and more.

Noissue also plants trees when you buy certain items. Another bonus: they also offer access to a large network of green stores around the world in cities including New York, Hong Kong, and London.

Eco craft

Eco craft is a green packaging company from the UK that serves the EU and is recognized for its regular research. The brand updates its designs to maximize efficiency and also advises clients on how to re-use, recycle, or compost their packaging.

The company keeps its clients up to date on their latest discoveries; for example, they don’t do pallet deliveries because there is currently no green alternative to the shrink-wrapping currently required—but their team is now investigating how to make this process sustainable.

The Better Packaging

“Package better, be better” is The Better Packaging slogan. Founded by designers Rebecca Percasky and Kate Bezar, the pair create all kinds of stylish-but-sustainable packaging to support e-commerce and retail.

The Australian company is based in New Zealand but has storage and distribution facilities in both countries, as well as in the US, UK, and China.

Creating Bags

This Spanish company produces fabric and string packaging using green fibers, especially jute and cotton.

Creating Bags makes fabric cases, bags, backpacks, toiletry bags, envelopes, tape, and even fabric labels. A natural alternative to plastic, these multiple-use products can help reduce plastic pollution in our oceans and the use of greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels needed to make single-use plastic.

If you want to learn more about product design, sign up for the Creating an Etsy Store from Scratch course by Depeapa. Or to deep-dive into the world of packaging and beyond, discover all of Domestika's online design courses.

English version by @studiogaunt.

You may also like:

- What Is Upcycling?
- What Is Sustainable Packaging and How Can It Help Your Brand?
- Introduction to Sustainable Graphic Design, a course by Creative Director and Graphic Designer Núria Vila Punzano
- Sustainable Packaging Design for E-commerce, a course by Tatabi Studio