Role of design in packaging is the focus at Respack

The discussion began with highlighting the importance of design in responsible packaging for developing sustainable solutions. GV Sree Kumar puts a question to the panellists, “What are the primary design considerations and material selection criterias you follow for creating new packaging? Are there any industry-wide guidelines specifically for designers for the area of sustainability?”

Pratik Rane cited two issues in terms of sustainability at a broad level: One is the use of non-renewable sources to produce the packaging; the second is plastic waste and pollution. He emphasises on the adoption of a circular approach towards plastics.

“Number one aspect when we talk about sustainability in packaging, is reduction,” says Rane. He shares an example of carton design with wrappers for tamper-evident. He believes, “If that can be incorporated into the carton design itself, the need for plastic or any additional packaging can be reduced.”

Then, Rane highlights how if not reduced, at least a material can be replaced with renewable alternatives; for example, virgin plastic can be replaced with PCR. The second aspect he highlights is reusability.

“One of our products is a moisturising gel, which is packed in a jar. Once the jar is completely empty, the consumer need not buy a new jar, can just take a refill pod, which then fits into the jar, and can be reused multiple times,” Rane shares. This refill pod has found almost 80% of plastic weight reduction.

Deepak Manchanda says, “The element of sustainability has always been present since the 1960s and 70s. Somewhere along the way, we have lost that.” According to him, this happened because of the marketing race to make products or packaging brighter. He says, “This can be either in terms of colour which is reverse printed, or adding gloss or lamination, which results in causing that product to be less sustainable and less compostable.” This gave rise to MLP.

When asked about the relationship between design technology and manufacturing in the context of responsible packaging, Satish Satish Chamyvelumani said, “We consider design in multiple stages. The first thing is design for aesthetics. This plays an important role especially when it comes to sustainable packaging, because the customer does not switch when a sustainable packaging looks not up to the mark compared to the conventional packaging.”

The second aspect according to him is design for performance. He says, “A sustainable packaging should be as if not better performing than your conventional packaging. Then the most important one is designed for scaling and manufacturing.” He further adds that the company’s water consumption used to be 50 kilolitres per tonne four or five years ago. Today it is at 33 kilolitres per tonne.

Manoj Kochar later talks about how authentication solutions should be designed and integrated into packaging to prevent counterfeiting, and how to incorporate sustainability into them.

“There are several technologies available to integrate an authentication feature onto the product packaging,” he says. There are holograms with features of depth and lenses and flipping images, de-metallised  effects, special performance inks like colour-shifting inks, and inks that light up under specific lighting conditions. Kochar adds, “Then there is also the digital technology, QR codes on products are often used as an authentication feature and also to promote consumer engagement by enticing consumers to enrol into their loyalty programs.”

Kochar believes that these technologies can lend themselves to creation of highly captivating and interactive design elements that have the power to engage with the customer and enhance the brand recall.

“With each of these technologies, no new material needs to be necessarily added, thus not negatively affecting the sustainability of the environment,” he says.

According to Kocharm, this secures the brand and promotes the engagement between the brand and the consumer. “And both these make the brand even more commercially sustainable. Therefore, a part of responsible design is also to make the brand more sustainable commercially,” he signs off.