Sustainability 101 is a weblog collection that you would be able to flip to for details about totally different environmental phrases that will come up at work, throughout discussions with buddies, and even at your loved ones gatherings.
Whether or not we’re buying grocery objects wrapped in plastic or receiving a house cargo packed in polystyrene peanuts, packaging is a part of our on a regular basis lives. Nonetheless, a lot of it turns into waste after one use.
In response to the Organisation for Financial Co-operation and Improvement (OECD), 31% of plastics produced are for packaging – usually single-use and with a median six-month lifespan. Plastic is broadly used as an efficient packaging materials, however as waste within the setting, it could have a damaging impression.
Analysis revealed within the November 16, 2024, Journal of Hazardous Supplies Advances exhibits that that in landfills, plastic can emit toxins and grow to be a supply of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and in oceans, it could break down into microparticles that would disrupt meals chains and contribute to quite a lot of well being problems.
Another non-recyclable or non-compostable packaging objects embody foam, aluminum foil with meals residue, and fused parts resembling cardboard hooked up to foam that can not be simply separated for recycling.
How does this affect shoppers’ decisions? A 2025 McKinsey & Firm survey studies that 77 % of respondents think about recyclable packaging “extraordinarily essential” or “essential,” whereas 62 % responded the identical about packaging made out of recycled supplies.
Packaging sustainability: Supplies matter
In a round financial system, industries regulate their processes to allow the reuse and regeneration of supplies. The aim is to make merchandise with the smallest environmental impression utilizing the fewest assets attainable.
By specializing in supplies, corporations could make their product containers and parts extra sustainable, resembling berry growers utilizing compostable trays or cosmetics producers utilizing refillable containers for post-purchase reuse.
Another methods embody:
- Lowering or eliminating pointless parts
- Utilizing QR codes to digitize info vs. printed supplies
- Incentivizing client recycling with rewards or by offering clear directions on the way to recycle
Utilizing these options might help cut back packaging waste whereas aligning with buyer values. It additionally might help cut back packaging prices, optimize house effectivity, and construct in regulatory compliance.
How Cisco’s technique has advanced to suppose “contained in the field”
For Cisco, packaging sustainability is the follow of minimizing waste by decreasing or eradicating sure supplies — resembling single-use plastic baggage and foam — and changing them with different supplies which might be renewable, recyclable, or each.
In 2019, Cisco developed a set of Round Design Rules for its merchandise throughout 5 classes — considered one of which is packaging and equipment. Product groups and packaging engineers in our Provide Chain Operation staff collaborate on the outset of the design part to craft a bundle that gives the optimum steadiness of product safety and circularity. Lots of our merchandise now incorporate recyclable fiber-based cushions like FiberFlute®, paper tube cushions, and molded pulp to exchange foam. Via Cisco’s No Paper Initiative, QR codes for digital product info keep away from materials use altogether.
A superb instance is the Cisco Ceiling Microphone Professional bundle, which is totally fiber based mostly. As a substitute of plastic trays, we opted for unbleached molded pulp-fiber trays which might be robust sufficient to cushion the delicate unit, but gentle sufficient for cost-effective delivery. We additionally swapped out the traditional single-use plastic bag with a custom-fit paper sleeve that totally encases the unit and shields it from mud and abrasion.
Packaging from legacy merchandise could be modified for circularity as nicely, and Cisco’s Catalyst 9300 Enterprise Swap is a major instance.
To interchange foam, we used recycled thermoforms to cushion the chassis — eliminating about 250 metric tonnes of froth yearly — and recycled and recyclable fiber-based retention packs for the ability provide models — avoiding roughly 70 extra metric tonnes per yr. To eradicate plastic baggage, we opted for paper flag labels on energy cords, consolidated small elements throughout a number of baggage, and swapped out plastic for paper-based envelopes. In fiscal 2025, Cisco utilized these packaging adjustments to the brand new era Cisco C9350 good switches.
Packaging sustainability: A Round Design Precept
Round Design Rules have remodeled the product and packing design course of at Cisco. Different examples of how we incorporate circularity into our packaging embody:
- Lowering supplies utilization with a heightened deal with plastics discount
- Designing containers and packing supplies to be separable and simply recycled at finish of use
- Utilizing post-consumer waste in new packaging elements
- Eliminating paper documentation in new product shipments
- Lowering the cargo of unused equipment by providing our prospects an opt-out possibility throughout the ordering expertise
- Utilizing multipack options to scale back materials utilization and bundling containers for giant shipments to scale back the variety of containers wanted
Through the use of extra environment friendly, renewable, and recyclable supplies, Cisco not solely helps preserve waste out of landfills however reduces prices and saves assets.
Be taught extra about these initiatives and Cisco’s packaging sustainability objectives within the Cisco Function Reporting Hub.
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