Packaging is important because it protects the product, allows it to be transported and serves as a medium for messages to reach the consumer. It also allows the product to be found on a shelf and to be used at home effectively.
P&G's packages always have a dual focus: on the environment and on the consumer. All P&G packaging is subjected to in-depth human health safety and ecological risk assessments and are designed in a sustainable way with consumers in mind.
P&G is committed to sustainability and does its utmost to make sure you can trust that its packaging is safe for you and for the environment.
P&G also wants to make sure its packaging is good value, and to achieve all this in a single package all P&G's technical expertise is used. Inspiration does not just come from the world of washing powders and dishwasher detergents.
Our design managers would just as soon use an car or a surf board as the starting point for an idea that might end up on the supermarket shelves. But, above all, P&G listens to you, its customers.
P&G's aim in developing its packaging is to meet consumer expectations while also producing packages which also meet five sustainability objectives; namely:
- Reduce - less material used, for example, through cutting the weight of existing bottles, detergent compaction or the optimization of the amount of energy and raw materials, results in lower cost and a reduced load on the environment
- Recycle - an increased rate of recycling reduces the need for new material and again reduces the environmental load.
- Re-use - recovering packages after they have been used, or allowing them to be reused through refills, reduces costs and cuts down on the need for raw materials.
- Replace - switching to alternative resources such as post-consumer recycled materials which can reduce material requirements as well as carbon dioxide emissions.
- Remove - limiting or avoiding the use of certain materials from our packaging where that can improve the safety profile, the environmental quality, societal acceptability or the compatibility with waste management systems.