By: Nick Dorman
In conversation with a biologist working at leading CPG businesses recently, I was amazed to hear him say, “In theory, we can make everything we sell from everything we throw away.”
As a designer, innovator and brand strategist, I’ve spent years working with clients at Echo to make their brands and packaging more sustainable. Careful choice of materials, light-weighting, and concentration being the main approaches available to us.
The reality is, with just 10% of plastics being recycled, we are making very little headway. Tinkering around the edges of a supply chain that is fundamentally flawed from an environmental standpoint isn’t cutting it.
We need a revolution.
This biologist’s approach involved producing everything from detergents to bottles, from genetically modified microbes fed from the sugars in waste materials. Even more interesting was that this could happen in homes rather than factories. Our minds were reeling with possibilities. We could reduce our reliance on oil and cut down our transportation carbon footprint, all the while providing new consumer benefits through personalization and customization.
A few weeks later I attended the Global Innovation Forum in London where discussions explored the 4th Industrial Revolution – the convergence of physical, digital and biological technologies. The name was first coined by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). One of his main points is that this revolution will happen quickly and it will be accelerated by the need for environmental and economic change, all while being facilitated by the speed of digital technologies.
While the WEF is concerned with a whole host of issues, we are particularly focused on how it will affect the world of design, branding, and packaging. How can we as designers influence and take full advantage this new revolution?
Packaging is a consequence of our current, mass production system. It’s needed to contain, transport and dispense product while acting as a billboard for branding and communication. But what if that system becomes redundant? Arup has already designed and built a house that produces its own bio-fuel. Philip’s world famous design department is drafting up kitchens that are powered from household waste. New startup Memphis Meats are growing animal proteins from stem cells in the lab, so how soon will it be when consumers start doing this at home instead?
If a centralized factory system is replaced by localized production systems facilitated by ‘growing’ materials and 3D printing of products, what role does packaging play, if any? If it’s not needed to transport or protect goods, and the selling job will be done elsewhere, then the role of branding will need to be performed by different touch points.
In all likelihood, conventional retail stores will also disappear with the acceleration of e-commerce along with ‘at source’ manufacturing. So what is the role of brands in this new dynamic? The big upside to all of this is the dramatic reduction in carbon footprint, huge declines in disposable products and plastic, and self-contained energy systems.
This is not looking like the best of news for packaging manufacturers but what of packaging designers? How can brand design help drive reappraisal of new kinds of ingredients, a new kind of provenance through the creation of new visual aesthetics?
Change is coming and it will come fast so designers need to find where the newest business opportunities lie. Companies like Splosh and Replenish are already designing durable refillable dispensers for the home. The systems will change but we will still need to hold and dispense product, as well as branding in some form. Packaging will most likely be more durable, intelligent, linked to digital services, and defined by the user and their environment. It will work with a highly compact supply chain with packaging that could be potentially 3D printed at the point of consumer need. Two Dutch designers Eric Klarenbeek and Maartje Dros, intend to open a network of local ‘bakeries’ making everything from shampoo bottles to tableware from organic materials using 3D printing.
Fresh challenges and opportunities abound. In the same way the 4th industrial Revolution needs the confluence of the physical, digital and biological worlds, the design of this bright future will require the coming together of creatives, technologists, scientists, logisticians and many more. As designers, we should all look forward to playing our part.
Nick Dorman
He’s been an engineer, a product designer, an innovator and a strategist. For Nick, everything is born out of a passion for expressing purpose. It’s an infectious passion he passes on to our people and clients when leading Echo’s strategy and innovation team in London.
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