From drinks to toys to household goods, planet-friendly
packaging has become a selling point in its own right. Earlier
this summer in Los Angeles, Greenpeace activists unfurled a
cheeky banner from the top of Mattel’s headquarters to denounce
the company’s procurement of packaging materials. Testing of
boxes in which Barbie dolls were packaged revealed paper fibres
traced to deforested regions in Indonesia. Within a week, Mattel
had pledged to change its sourcing policy and instruct its
suppliers to commit to sustainable packaging. Mattel will learn
from other companies that deal with a long and tangled supply
chain that sustainable packaging is not only about waste
diversion, but also innovation that can boost a firm’s bottom
line. Companies that had long competed against each other based
on product now joust for an edge based on their products’
packaging, from two-litre soft drinks bottles to laptop
computers. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) and food companies are
now quick to tout the advantages that their p