Package Design and Execution
Sustainable Packaging in the Club Industry
The issue of sustainable, or environmentally friendly, packaging in the club industry is growing in importance for Costco, BJ's, and Sam’s Club and their vendors. All three clubs stock products that use sustainable packaging materials.
- Sustainable Packaging Principles - According to www.sustainablepackaging.org, sustainable packaging is "beneficial, safe and healthy for individuals and communities through its life cycle, it meets performance and cost criteria, maximizes use of renewable or recycled materials, it is manufactured using clean production technology and is effectively recovered and utilized in biological and/or industrial cradle to cradle cycles."
- Remove or Reduce Packaging - Any unnecessary packaging, boxes or layers of packaging should be reduced or removed from the product, case or pallet. This should be done in such a way that packaging strength is not reduced. For some vendors, plastic handles provide a solution for packaging removal or reduction.
- Reuse Packaging - Where possible, vendors should use packaging materials that are reused, such as CHEP pallets or reusable plastic containers.
- Recyclable Packaging - Packaging should be made out of as much recyclable material as possible without reducing strength; packaging components should be selected based on how easy they are to recycle; and packaging should be built from as few components as possible to ease sorting
- Revenue - Try to achieve "cost parity or cost savings" with existing packaging methods.
