OPTIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS
Have you and your company committed to decreasing your environmental impact? Perhaps your customers are requiring sustainable products as part of meeting their sustainability goals. Or maybe your customers need sustainable labels to comply with local environmental packaging regulations and requirements.
Companies, consumers, and regulatory agencies are increasingly focused on sustainability. One of the major points of focus when it comes to this is the effect that packaging can have on our environment. Because labels play a key part of packaging and the supply chain, chances are that you will at some point need to consider how your customer’s labels contribute to overall sustainability.
There are several decisions that can be made to decrease the impact of labels on our environment. We’ve put together this overview of some of these considerations.
In many cases, these choices will balance function, cost, availability, and practicality with overall sustainability goals and requirements. You can contact our label experts any time and we can help you choose the right labels to meet your and your customer’s sustainability, budget and labeling goals.
SUSTAINABLE LABEL MATERIALS
The material that your customer’s labels are made of can play a large role in helping to reach sustainability goals. As the desire for more environmentally friendly packaging increases, label material suppliers and manufacturers are continually developing new materials to meet this need.
While these sustainable materials are generally more expensive than conventional label materials, many companies will determine that the extra cost is worth it to meet sustainability goals or customer demand. Sustainable materials also aren’t as readily available as conventional label materials. But as the market for environmentally friendly packaging grows, these materials will become more mainstream.
The market for sustainable products has also become much more nuanced than in years past. The sustainability of a given material goes beyond simply whether it’s made of recycled paper. When determining how a particular material helps to meet sustainability goals, companies consider many factors – looking at where and how a material is made, what it is made of, how much material is needed and what happens to the material as it moves throughout its lifespan. Some companies may simply be looking for a label printed on renewable or recycled materials, while others will look for a product that has been sustainably produced, and yet another will be looking for a label that is recyclable or biodegradable.
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