On 20 June 2024,ALL4PACK EMBALLAGE PARIS organised a webinar on the trade-offs made by companies in response to the (sometimes contradictory) demands of eco-design. This highly topical theme was illustrated by several case studies, which can be found on the show’s news pages.

On the morning of 20 June 2024, the ALL4PACK EMBALLAGE PARIS trade show invited its network to attend a webinar devoted to “arbitrating the paradoxes of eco-design”. Alongside Chantal de Lamotte (exhibition director) and Fabrice Peltier (eco-design expert), Stéphane Merlet (packaging engineer at Fleury-Michon) and Alexandre Vernier (head of packaging innovation and CSR at the Bel group) were invited to share their experiences of the eco-design measures implemented within their group.

Eco-design: a tortuous path

There is no straight line or ready-made solution for those wishing to convert to the virtues of eco-design, a tortuous path paved with contradictory injunctions, as Fabrice Peltier reminded us at the opening of this webinar: ” We want to recycle everything and, at the same time, we want everything to be low-carbon (…)”. (…)” He went on to explain that the AGEC law (editor’s note: anti-waste law for a circular economy), which ” leads us to recycle all packaging and to reduce single-use plastic, can at times be contradictory with the climate and resilience law, which aims to help us achieve our carbon reduction targets, since plastic-free solutions can be more carbon-intensive…”.

During the webinar, a number of other contradictions were pointed out. For example, it was pointed out that ” plastic-free solutions can often be more carbon-intensive “. Yet it seems complicated to be able to recycle everything while remaining low-carbon. In this respect, the challenges differ from region to region, and it is therefore complicated to standardise all the regulations to meet people’s needs. Lastly, Stéphane Merlet highlighted the constraints imposed by the way products are displayed on the shelves, ” which forces or even prevents [companies] from substituting plastic, not because it is directly linked to the product ” but because ” they just don’t want to change the way they are produced and displayed on the shelves “.

Two concrete examples of trade-offs linked to eco-design

In this complex legal environment, how do companies manage to make the trade-offs and translate their environmental commitments into reality? To illustrate the trade-offs made by their companies, our two speakers chose to talk about two concrete projects: the Fleury-Michon wooden tray and the Babybel paper bag.

With regard to the first example, the Fleury-Michon wooden tray, Stéphane Merlet acknowledged that despite the shortcomings of plastic (environmental and health impact, restrictive legislative frameworks, poor consumer perception), it has ” undeniable properties “, particularly in terms of food preservation. With the launch of this new wooden tray, Fleury Michon had to adapt its marketing strategy because, as Stéphane Merlet points out, ” for a customer to agree to pay more for a product, you have to present them with a better quality dish “.

Alexandre Vernier then reports on the technical and business challenges faced by the BEL group in the face of ” regulations that are pushing us towards solutions that eliminate single use “. For the expert, meeting these new regulations necessarily involves testing several solutions. As part of the Babybel brand, the group has marketed a special series of blue, white and red Babybels in which the cellophane has been replaced by a more environmentally-friendly paper wrap. But before declaring the experiment a success, Alexandre Vernier points out that it is vital to support the transformation of consumer habits and to study consumer perceptions, from both an environmental and a financial point of view.

Would you like to gain a better understanding of the paradoxes of eco-design and the trade-offs faced by companies using packaging? Look out for more articles on this topic in the near future, or watch the webinar replay now!

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