A Guide to Sustainable Packaging Solutions

It is no secret 2020 was a pivotal year for the rise of e-commerce.

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Consumers who may have resisted shopping online before were accelerated to adopt online ordering from groceries to home goods and everything in between due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In the United Kingdom alone, the 2020 value of online retail sales was just under £100 billion, a 30 percent increase from 2019 online sales! 

This is, of course, great news if you have a growing e-commerce business. Your business's potential to reach new customers has expanded rapidly, and it seems as if there is a new technology released every day that makes it easier for you to run your online business. 

However, we cannot ignore that the rise of e-commerce comes at an environmental cost to our planet. From plastic packaging used to ship goods to shipping providers who have not optimized for reducing travel distances and who use outdated shipping fleets.  

At Bezos, we are committed to making fulfilment greener and more sustainable. We’ve received grants from Innovate UK for our DECAF project that will be launching in June 2021, in London’s Zone 1 and 2. This last-mile delivery service will use cargo bikes to deliver packages from our sellers to their customers; lowering emissions, reducing congestion and improving the air quality.

Today, we are very excited to announce another way Bezos is committed to mitigating the environmental cost of e-commerce by introducing our new partnership with noissue. noissue offers a range of sustainable packaging solutions available in low minimum order quantities (MOQs) that your customers and our planet will appreciate.

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What is sustainable packaging?

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Sustainable packaging is packaging that is created to minimize its impact on our planet. Rather than using materials that end up in landfills after a single-use, the packaging can be composted, recycled, or reused. The materials are also ethically sourced to reduce the impact on the environment during the manufacturing process. For example, rather than using petroleum-based inks, soy-based inks are used as a sustainable alternative.

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What are some sustainable packaging materials? 

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Sustainable materials can be hard to spot as there a lot of companies marketing their products as ‘sustainable’ when in reality, that may not be the case. When you’re unsure, it’s best to use globally recognized certifications to spot sustainable materials. These include:

• Paper products sourced from forests that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
• Compostable products that are Home Compostable as certified by TUV Austria 

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Why use sustainable packaging: 

For Your Customers

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• 66% of global consumers and 73% of millennials are willing to spend more for sustainable goods. 
• According to Nielsen, 48% of consumers are willing to change their consumption habits to lower their environmental impact. 
• The search for "unboxing experience" has skyrocketed since 2009 (below). A great unboxing experience is no longer a nice to have, but a must-have. Using sustainable packaging can be your competitive advantage over your competitors. 

Source: google trends

For Our Planet 

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• Plastic packaging is the main contributor to plastic waste in our landfills, responsible for almost half of the global total. 

Source: ourworldindata.org

• Free to join, noissue's eco-alliance community plants a tree for each order a member places with them. Why trees? A grown tree can sequester 48 lbs of Co2 a year! Planting trees also helps to offset the carbon emitted to get the packaging from us to you.  
• All of noissue's products must fit into a circular framework, which means each new product we launch must be either reusable, recyclable or compostable. Bonus points when they fall into multiple categories, like our compostable mailers, that you can reuse with their two adhesive strips and home compostable certification.  

noissue sustainable packaging options

Compostable Mailers and Recyclable Mailers 

100% compostable or 100% recycled mailers make the perfect swap from plastic mailers destined for landfills. noissue Mailers are durable and stretchable and perfect for clothing of all sizes. You can both write on and easily stick shipping labels onto the mailers. 

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Customizable at 25,000 MOQ. 

Tape

noissue tape is made of 100% recycled Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) paper and activated by water. It is durable and perfect for sealing boxes weighing up to 30 kilograms. It is also the perfect substitute for an expensive, fully customized box by adding your brand's touch to boxes already in existence. 

Custom design starting at five rolls.  

Tissue

noissue tissue is made of paper sourced from FSC forests, it is acid-free, and uses soy-based ink. Tissue paper helps protect your products in transit while creating an Instagram-worthy unboxing for your customer. 

Customizable at orders as low as 250. 

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Stickers

noissue stickers use 100% recycled paper, are acid-free, and use soy-based ink. They are not coated in plastic so don't have the shine you might be used to from other sticker suppliers, but a small trade-off to make for a sticker that leaves our planet a little better. 

Customizable at orders as low as 250. 

Cards

noissue cards can be ordered in 100% recycled or a mix of recycled and FSC paper. They help you add the final touch of a thank you note to your end customers, so they feel appreciated for supporting your business over your competition. 

Customizable at orders as low as 25. 

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