Image from TreeHugger.com

In an article on the big design and branding stories looming in 2010, The New York Times noted that a proposal “to help consumers monitor their environmental impact by introducing a global system of identifying the carbon and water footprints of products and their packaging is to be discussed at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, later this month”.

Having a universal system (presumably some graphical device with numbers) would offer consumers the benefit of simple and comprehensible information, and would offer brands the chance to clean up their packs (diverse brand led sustainability messaging keeps popping up like measles, potentially confusing consumers and cluttering designs). But on the other hand, if a universal system is adopted, will it quickly become so much easily overlooked graphic wallpaper (whereas brand led initiatives can offer information in engaging and amusing ways which cause a double take)? In a perfect world one hopes for a new design so elegant and clear that it begs to be read for its own sake (much as the London Underground map achieved). Failing this, which alternative do you think will be the most engaging or influential – a universal approach or an idiosyncratic brand led one?

In either case one of the challenges of footprint information is to make it tangible – is a 75g carbon footprint on a pack of biscuits a reasonable or awful thing? Those of us without a mathematical or scientific brain need analogies or comparisons which  make the numerical meaningful.

In the meantime, with the Copenhagen Climate Conference yielding a compromised result, it appears that many politicians lack a mandate for change. And much research suggests that many consumers want brands to “fix” the problem for them rather than be asked to do much themselves. While it is to be hoped that the few who make their purchasing choices based on footprints and the like will grow, for now corporations and brands have both the opportunity and burden of leading the charge.

Here’s my borderline apocalyptic packaging prediction for the next decade: by 2020, none of the packs above will exist. And not just because bees will supposedly be extinct, with us soon to follow. Rather, from all the predictions being sought and reported from the great and the good, one theme keeps recurring – that while we might not have got to the very last drop, the coming decade is the one when the oil running out looms large and real. To follow this thought, plastic packaging will become less viable, and wrapping say kitchen roll in cellophane will probably carry the same social stigma as wearing fur.

While marketing and design will not be driving change and solutions, we will be a part of it, and while the challenge to come up with alternatives to plastic is a ridiculously difficult one, the best brands will position themselves as part of the solution. The pitfall is that organic alternatives, produced in any kind of scale, will doubtless have equally damaging effects on the environment, natural habitat and biodiversity. But by decade’s end alternatives will have to be found, and those who buried their heads in the sand will be getting called to account. The three R’s of this decade were re-use, reduce and recycle. The new big R’s will be radical rethinking and reformulation. It’s going to get more bracing, but glass half full, how privileged we are as an industry to potentially be part of the change.

Or click here to watch the link

This year has seen plenty of examples of sustainable initiatives presented with a cheerful flourish rather than a worthy sense of piety (Sainsbury’s promotion of pollock as “Colin” springs to mind). As we all get rather jaded with every brand letting us know it is doing its bit, it was inevitable that CSR communication was going to undo its top button, relax its shoulders and become a vehicle for more engaging “info-tainment”.

Probably the most prominent example of this has been Stella Artois’ “Recyclage de Luxe” campaign, which suggests sustainability can be stylish. The new (fifteen minute!) spoof TV show certainly demonstrates a commitment to the topic. Stella is making a virtue of truth well told, and showing it can be done with flair.

‘Tis the season to post best of lists. Time magazine has a list of 2009’s best inventions. Less intriguing than the lists levitating mouse or fashion robot, but arguably of more consequence is Johannes Schneider’s algorithm: it works out the perfect arrangement of shapes to ensure the most efficient way to pack them or ship them*. While it might not appear particularly sexy, the money saved could probably pay for a lot more above the line flim flam (we undertook a similar exercise globally for Heinz Ketchup bottles and the money saved was really significant). The neat arrangements of individual items can also have a visual elegance which can be exploited when planning shelf blocking / shelf-ready packaging etc. Solid foundations are always an excellent base for great creativity.

*while this is not a new idea, and is of course the basis of most packing, this particular algorithm apparently breaks previous efficiency records.

Dell have been producing computers with a bamboo cladding for a little while. The design offers a distinctively warmer and more analogue feeling alternative to the category’s usual glossy plastics. But according to CBS News, the company is now replacing some of its packaging (such as the moulded cushions used to protect in transit) with the material as well. What’s the upside? As a fast growing grass, the bamboo offers a sustainable material which is kinder to the earth. It’s also a cheaper (although currently slower) manufacturing process which is mechanical rather than chemical. Downsides? Apparently covered – the raw material is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, and is not grown with the aid of hazardous pesticides. The factory is in China, same as the bamboo (but it’s farmed far from the grazing grounds of the giant pandas). Most municipals currently don’t recycle bamboo, but the company is in the process of helping change this.

Any green initiative always seems to have a downside, and I guess there will be one somewhere here (for example, will the initiative be as green if it moves to a larger scale of operation?). But that said, the innovative approach with a close eye on detail, yields not just more sustainable packaging but also a more distinctive brand behaviour. This in turn relates to a signature Dell product, making this an impressive piece of joined up thinking. A candidate for sustainable initiative of the year?

Levi’s is adding this label to their jeans stateside, recommending sustainable washing behaviour and encouraging passing the jeans onto others more needy when you are done with them. On one hand it is very scrooge like to be cynical of any CSR initiative. On the other…well, all the communication here puts the responsibility on the consumer, who might feel a bit nagged and wonder if the company itself practises what it preaches. It’s kind of like reading in your hotel room that the management want you to re-use your towel, not to save them a job, heavens no, but to save the planet.

Encouraging good behaviour is fine, but it risks looking like token CSR messaging if the brand isn’t overtly leading the way somehow. Secondly, I thought the whole point of Levi’s was to wear them till they fell apart – that they got better as they got older, and giving them up was only possible when they were truly past physical redemption. But perhaps as a brand introducing new lines regularly, the shelf life on a pair is now only as long as a passing fashion for a particular cut? My point being not that do-gooding is wrong, but that the most powerful and inspirational way to motivate consumers needs to feel like it comes from a brand’s heart, rather than appearing tacked on (even if the basic motivation is pure and well-intentioned). Levi’s are also doing work with “obey” designer Shepard Fairey in the US - perhaps they should get André the giant to lay down the law on how we should behave?

Above is a fantastic new initiative from Heineken – the bottles have been designed for re-use after drinking being, in effect, glass bricks. Actually, I’m kidding – innovative and contemporary as this packaging looks, the design hails from 1963, proving there is nothing new under the sun. With all the green initiatives sprouting up, do you find it hard to keep pace with what’s going on, and where the really meaty developments are happening?

The example above is taken from “Green Shoots”, Structural and Innovation brand consultant Robert Monaghan’s short but excellent book, which rounds up some of the smartest sustainability solutions. Because the book focuses on the work of bigger brands and companies, it’s possible to see that scale offers as much scope for bold thinking as that afforded the little guys with their more limber production methods. Well worth a read if it’s part of your business to make packaging more sustainable, and full of inspiring and clever solutions. You can buy a copy by emailing robert@airinnovation.eu

One often hears of the “three Rs” of sustainability – recycle, reduce or re-use. Here are a couple of initiatives that play with the concept of re-using things…

Put up to coincide with New York Fashion Week in early September, Mother recently created the above campaign for Target stores in Times Square, using New York artists to celebrate the city and brand. When the posters come down they will be turned into 1,600 tote bags designed by Anna Sui. Ninety percent of the materials used to make the $29.99 bags comes directly from the posters. “We wanted to highlight our commitment to style, value and recycling,” said Michael Francis, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Target.

Arguably less glamorously, Kenco has launched a call for Britain to “go on a packaging diet” to coincide with the roll-out of its new Kenco Eco Refill resealable packs (below), an alternative to its glass jars. According to Packaging News, the Eco Refill packs use 81% less energy in their manufacture than equivalent glass jars that are currently on the market.

Which initiative do you admire more? For me it’s Kenco, because rather than talk about commitment with an imaginative promotion they instead offer a genuine solution. The Target campaign actually makes more stuff we probably don’t need, and excellent sustainability website Treehugger notes “Can a solution be truly green when you set out to create the problem in the first place? More important, should you be crowing about it?”. They go on to explain that the PVC substrate used for the posters is far from green, and suggest better alternatives exist such as eco-flex.

However, I do wonder if the simple idea of refilling core packaging at the heart of Kenco’s initiative could have a little more va va voom? If consumers are to be encouraged to re-use a jar forever, perhaps the jar itself could inspire such behaviour by being a little more “designer”, if that’s not a dirty word. Obviously creating a bespoke bottle for such an initiative (for example, one which replaces the paper label with an emboss, reducing packaging even more) would have cost and eco implications, but creating a version of the regular vessel designed to grace a kitchen shelf rather than a shop shelf opens up great design opportunities which might better engage consumers.

There are not that many examples of brands which are managing to pull off sustainability and style in equal measure (Method cleaning products are a notable good example) - it’s a tough challenge, and easy to snipe from the sidelines, but I think both of these examples pull off at least one side of the equation in interesting ways.

At The Hameau de la Reine, tucked away within the gardens of Versailles, Marie Antoinette played shepherdess, milking beautifully clean hand picked cows with royal porcelain milk churns. She was in part inspired by Rousseau’s fashionable “cult of nature”.  Now it’s a small jump from Rousseau to UK environment minister Hilary Benn, but bear with me…

In a bid to reduce the enormous amount of edible food we tip into landfills, Benn has called for consumers’ common sense to replace the “Best Before” date on packaging, recommending packs only carry the more necessary “use by” information. Not content with one piece of common sense, he has also suggested that Supermarkets’ standardised approach to fresh fruit and veg (where anomalies of shape and colour are rejected, Stepford wives style), is both unsound and misses the opportunity to celebrate variety.

I think Benn is very on trend: “Best Before” was originally used to promote brands’ commitment to quality – M&S made some fuss about it as I recall. But “with no plan B” the world has moved on. The middle class are embracing a designer make do and mend ethic, from Cath Kidston how-to manuals to Observer blogs on allotments. Variety and homespun charm are celebrated in fancy cup cake shops and the successful prints of the Keep Calm Galleries – it’s all sort of Blitz spirit light. Meanwhile, how many supermarkets must brainstorm around the “farmers’ market opportunity”  I wonder, whilst simultaneously rejecting spuds that don’t fit their template? Celebrating the homespun and honest is a brilliant opportunity for any brand which can live up to the claim: Budweiser have made great capital of their “born on“ labelling and Campbell’s have had huge publicity for their “grow your own tomatoes” initiative, which looks fantastic and makes the brand feel cool again.

The opportunity is less “austerity Britain” and “dig for victory” and more around a premium lifestyle choice – the influential New York Times style section this week praised the wonky grocery signs (below) to the heavens, and Michelle Obama’s Whitehouse kitchen garden initiative shows that muddy boots can be the height of chic. This might all be as fanciful as Marie Antoinette’s farm, but the first UK brand or supermarket to make a deal out of dropping the Best Before and celebrate the charm of non standardised produce could make a real splash.

Save your logo’s idea is brilliantly simple: get brands with logos featuring flora and fauna to protect the species they use as their emblem. You can find out more at www.saveyourlogo.org

From a branding perspective it’s obvious that brand-centric CSR (rather than random altruism) is going to pay back better for the brand in the end. Save your logo offers a tailor made way to make the generalist brand-specific. It’s doubly fitting then for Lacoste – as the first sportswear to put their logo on the garment’s outside, they are also the initiative’s first international partner. Now, who can be the first UK brand?