Plant your package! Greenfield Paper Seed Paper literally gets paper back to nature, as here you can see actual seeds impregnated in the paper sprouting.

Sandstrom Design created recycled and recyclable steel tins as value-added packaging, with a tea infuser tin to brew tea without a tea bag.

Getting On the Path to
Sustainable Innovation

by Curt McNamara

A package is a bridge from producer to consumer, with transport and sale in between. Each of these locations in space is a customer and offers ways to innovate. The package design has many attributes—some visible, others invisible.

It advertises its contents, protects them against shock and the elements, adds security, and has a life after death. All of these attributes are points in time where innovation can happen.

So what is a sustainable package? In the best case, one that does its job without leaving a footprint. That footprint comes from material creation and processing, transport, and material recycling (or not!).

One path towards sustainability is to document and record these materials and actions, then replace the worst with better things. Nothing wrong with this, yet there are bigger fish out there.

The bigger opportunities come from rethinking the package itself. Is it part of the product? Is the product part of the package? Could the package live forever and be useful? How about a package that composts and adds nutrients to the soil? A package that sprouts in the garden?

All of these and more are possible. To find new approaches it can help to have a guide. John Thackara is one. His book In The Bubble lists 10 ways to innovate sustainably: lightness, speed, mobility, locality, situation, conviviality, learning, literacy, smartness, and flow. What ideas do these give you?

Lightness, or doing more with less, is a driving force over many industries. Can your package be a web? Can it be made from compostable materials? How about a life after purchase? Perhaps it becomes a stand or is documentation.

Can your package do more than passively sell, but also teach (value add)? It could teach about the product, it could teach about sustainability, it could teach about science. Sometimes the best approach is at an angle to your intent. Forces never cancel, and some energy squirts off to the side. Sustainable Design pioneer Buckminster Fuller called this "precession" the mechanism where the bee pollinates as it feeds.

How does nature package? She builds the package along with the contents, using the same materials. No last minute extra process step here! The package can be edible or used to transport and advertise the contents. Fruit attracts birds that then scatter the seeds along with fertilizer. Some seed packages stick to you, carrying them along your path.

Should your package be fast or slow? How can you reverse time for your package design? What does time mean for your package? Is it interesting enough to make people stop and think (leveraging point of difference? Is it interesting enough to make people think about your product even if they don't buy today (residual perception)? Can the consumer leave the package in the store and take just the product home (round trip packaging)?

Packages retain mobility when they transport the product time after time. Local packages are unique to your area, produced and linked to each region. They make your product stand out amongst the others and give that increasingly important local connection.

Ultimately there is no "one size fits all" package, as municipalities in different markets handle a package's distribution and afterlife in very different ways. But nature has found ways to allow single species to evolve and adapt to seemingly contradictory environments. By being open to drawing inspiration from all around you, opportunities can be nurtured organically, resulting in truly innovative solutions.

Curt McNamara, P.E., is a product designer, member of the o2 Global Sustainable Design Network (o2.org), and faculty for Minneapolis College of Art and Design's groundbreaking Sustainable Design Certificate Program (online.mcad.edu). He can be reached at c.mcnamara@ieee.org.