In recent strides towards sustainability, there’s an increasing need for brands to change their packaging towards more eco-friendly alternatives.

Pope Joan Design Studio feels it is vital to be more environmentally conscious, along with well-designed packaging that sets you apart from your competition.

Working with your new Brand Strategy and Identity Design Package, you can marry your branding to natural and raw materials.

Pope Joan recently turned to and aligned with a bio-based, fully compostable, and sustainable packaging company, noissue.

noissue is on a mission to make sustainable packaging accessible to businesses, brands, and makers no matter their size and to reduce waste by offering packaging that is reusable, compostable, or made from recycled materials.

Pope Joan Design Studio is part of an Eco-Packaging Alliance, a growing community committed to being better together, starting with sustainable packaging and being part of a circular economy while supporting your need for brand collateral.

The circular economy concept, known as circularity, has gained traction in recent years, inspiring businesses like Pope Joan Design Studio. Once a fringe topic, circularity is now acknowledged globally as the most promising solution to our planet’s looming sustainability issues.

In my business and yours, circularity refers to circular packaging systems instead of linear systems. Most companies follow a linear model of use. Materials enter the stream, are turned into something, and then discarded as waste. That is the Takes, Makes, Wastes Model. In that system, materials are extracted for single-use products before being discarded. An alternative system to this linear system is a system of circulation.

A lot of what contributes to a circular system is the materials used. This is part of the strategy, and all products fall into at least one of the circularity frameworks - Compostable, Recycle/Recyclable, or Reusable, so you can create that wow moment while staying true to your brand values.

Compostable packaging is typically made from several renewable plant-based materials and bio-polymers.

To be certified home compostable, a product must break down in home compost within 180 days and 90 days in commercial composting conditions.

Why it’s fantastic?

Cardboard and paper products are a great addition to the backyard compost as it helps with the carbon-nitrogen ratio. Easily broken down in compost, these products also tend to have chemical compounds removed from the product.

Ensuring Success

Sometimes, people don’t notice that something is compostable, meaning it can sometimes end up in a landfill. If you don’t have a home compost, you can look at local options for communal compost sites, or somewhere you can drop off items for commercial composting.

Recycled packaging is made from previously used materials, including paper and plastic.

The plastic is processed at a recycling facility and put back into circulation, thus doubling its lifespan.

Why it’s fantastic?

Recycling reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators - it conserves natural resources and prevents pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials. Instead of making something new - we’re taking something already in circulation to give it a second life!

Ensuring Success

While operating and maintaining recycling plants can often be a bit more costly, you can support them by choosing products made from recycled materials. When you're done with these products, make sure you recycle them in their appropriate categories, i.e., plastics, aluminum, glass, paper, etc., so they go to the right plant and don't end up in the landfill.

Reusable packaging has a built-in second (possibly third, fourth, etc.) use.

While most packaging is typically single-use and recycled after it accomplishes its primary goal, reusable packaging can be used multiple times for various functions.

Pope Joan Design Studio encourages a reusable economy by supporting noissue making high-quality products that can be reused repeatedly, reducing the need for new products, and giving products a longer life!

Why it’s fantastic?

When an item of packaging is used for a second time after its initial use, that doubles the utility of the packaging and prevents another single-use piece of packaging from being used.

Ensuring Success

For reusable packaging to have its desired impact, it has to be used more than once. Simply put, if a reusable bag is immediately discarded, it loses any potential positive benefits it might have had. To combat this, companies should focus on educating their customers on the packaging and how to make the most out of it.