Our business model is centred around a commitment to implementing sustainable best practices – with the overall aim of providing high-quality, solution-led packaging whilst minimising ours and our customers’ operational impacts on the environment.
It’s for this reason that we have made significant investments to our own infrastructure over recent years, with an approach that’s designed to create a sustainable foundation for future growth with less demand on the earth’s natural resources.
At the same time, we’re committed to supporting our customers to make their own operation more sustainable through their day-to-day packaging choice. From the materials they use, to how their packaging is designed, every decision impacts the wider environmental landscape.
In this article, we’re exploring what these commitments look like and how as a business, we’re leading the way in the packaging sector when it comes to future proofing the ecosystem of our planet through a greener packaging life cycle.
A greener future begins at home
In 2019, we purchased our current premises in Loughborough to facilitate further growth of the business. The building underwent a complete modernisation, with sustainability and resource efficiency at the heart of our plans.
Energy efficient LED lighting with motion sensor PIRs was installed, photovoltaic (PV) Solar Panels were added to the roof to generate power and six Tesla batteries were hooked up to the building’s electrical infrastructure to store excess energy for a rainy day. All of these choices contribute towards our ambitions of becoming self-sufficient and less reliant on the grid, setting the foundations for a greener packaging life cycle.
Delivering on customer carbon reduction targets
While we’ve invested significant time and money into reducing our own carbon footprint, we’re also passionate about finding new ways in which customers can reduce their environmental impact through the materials in which their packaging is manufactured.
Our corrugated cardboard packaging is sourced from FSC-registered manufacturers within the UK and by choosing a recyclable material, we’re supporting our customers to meet their own environmental targets.
In 2023, our in-house design team found an innovative way to completely remove polystyrene from the packaging used to transport and protect doors manufactured by two different customers. The team reimagined replacing the pre-existing bulky, polystyrene corner protectors with die-cut, recyclable corrugated cardboard alternatives and the solution proved to be robust enough to protect the products, while also delivering on eco-friendly objectives and minimising waste and storage space.
Since the solution’s implementation, our customers removed all polystyrene from their packaging without compromising quality. They have also enjoyed a 30% reduction in the cost of protecting their products and a 25% reduction in the amount of storage space needed, while also enhancing their own green credentials.
These benefits are also being felt by end users, by the construction firms who receive the doors for residential developments producing less landfill waste and instead recycling the packaging generated from bought-in doors.
Making space more sustainable
It’s not just how our packaging is manufactured that counts. How it utilises space is also paramount when considering a greener packaging life cycle.
We recently supported an e-commerce customer with sourcing a cost-effective and sustainable storage alternative to plastic for their warehouse picking operation. We worked with the customer to design, trial and deliver a bespoke corrugated alternative to its previous plastic tote bins. The customer was so impressed with the results that the business agreed to roll out the design across wider areas of its warehouse operation.
The beauty of the totes is that whilst they were designed to fit a large bay, their size can be tailored to fit bays of varying sizes. Our design team has already developed and produced half-bin totes for the customer’s smaller goods. These new cardboard totes take up less storage space and are 100% recyclable, making space more sustainable.
Discover how Colton Packaging can solve your packaging challenges and support your businesses cleaner, greener agenda, by getting in touch with our team of experts.
