Branding Your Eco Packaging: Telling Your Sustainability Story

Written by PrioryDirect on January 31, 2022. Posted in Awin, Business Services (B2B), Business Services (B2B), UK

Your packaging is where your brand reaches the customer in a physical sense. Choosing the right materials, and ensuring your customer understands them, is a huge opportunity for your brand to demonstrate its commitment to the environment.

Swapping to a sustainable solution is the sensible thing to do, however not informing your customer of your packaging’s eco credentials renders your smart choice almost useless. Plastic manufacturers are turning to grass, polythene producers are turning to potato starch, but unless it’s completely apparent that these new eco-friendly products aren’t the same as the age-old plastics which we’re all guilty of binning, we’re not going to see any considerable change.

The majority of stock packaging lines include official eco markers as standard, though when businesses create their own unique beautiful branded packaging, eco icons tend to be neglected and forgotten about. Whichever solution, stock or bespoke, is best for your business, it’s important to realise that these markers are a great way to communicate your values to your customers, tell your eco story, and help to evangelise your brand’s commitment to sustainability.

Official Eco Markers

If your main focus is instant recognition on a global or national scale, it may be wise to stick with the more traditional and official eco markers. We’ve put just a few below which you should already be familiar with, but as the eco-friendly need continues to grow, we’re seeing more and more rise in popularity and come to the forefront:

Unofficial Eco Markers

You don't have to stick with the official markers to show off the eco-credentials of your packaging. We’ve listed just a few examples of creative ways to speak to your customers about the eco-friendliness of your packaging to show it can be fun, on-brand, and easy-to-achieve:

Get Inspired

Care/of

Care/of, a personalised vitamin and supplement company made a sustainability shift in their packaging back in April 2019. Their vitamin packs are now made with a plant-based film; making them a great sustainable, compostable packaging option. They inform their customers of this packaging choice by opting for simple, yet effective messaging; speaking directly to the consumer and highlighting the eco credentials. ‘This pack is now made with compostable, plant-based materials’ is a message that cannot be missed or ignored, and one that encourages customers to dispose of the packaging correctly.

Priory Elements

Branding your packing tape is an incredibly effective way to add a personal touch to your despatches as it is, but using it to add an eco-message is an even smarter solution. Priory Elements, our very own brand of sustainable, planet friendly packaging solutions, uses a mixture of simple eco messaging and unofficial markers. Printed with ‘Delivered in planet friendly packaging’ and easy to understand icons, the Priory Elements EcoTape shows customers our eco values and draws attention to the sustainability of the product. Encouraging end users to dispose of packaging correctly is hugely important, and, therefore, simple branding can help hone in on the message.

Ask The Experts

By working together to swap to eco-friendly products and educating and informing business owners, we’re paving the way to a greener future for us all. We hope this has given you all the information you could need to know about eco markers and the importance of passing on the message to your customers, and probably a little bit more too. We pride ourselves on our service and sharing our knowledge wherever possible, so if you have any questions then please speak to us on live chat, give us a call on 01622 580100, or use our Contact page.

eCommerce operations are our speciality and we can advise on all aspects of despatch to assist you in perfecting your process, so please get in touch - we’ll be happy to help.

Don't forget, we're running other great promotions exclusively on our affiliate programme, offer 10% commission for new customers, as well as free next day delivery on orders over £250 - if you haven't already, join us today!

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Priory Direct Affiliate Team

Chloe Winsper | cjw@priorydirect.co.uk | Lauren Churcher | lrc@priorydirect.co.uk

Tags: ecommerce, packaging, packaging supplies, Sustainability



FSC promotes responsible management of the world's rainforests so you can recognise your items are from well-managed forests.	PEFC promotes responsible management of the world's rainforests throughout the supply chain so you can buy sustainably sourced and produced items.	Compostable logo bearers are certified to be industrially compostable according to the European standard EN 13432/14955.

Plastic Free is used to indicate where products are exactly that, and most prominently used in the food and drinks industry.	The recyclable logo is universally recognised for where the products' materials are partially or totally recyclable.	The green dot signifies the manufacturer has made a financial contribution towards the recovery and recycling of packaging.



An easy and effective way to communicate important eco credentials of your product packaging.	Made sustainably but no official marker? Combine multiple sustainable source credentials with this logo.

Show you understand and care about the fight against plastic in the oceans by adding this marker to your plastic free products.	Be fun but blatant with your message and speak directly to your customers about the packaging material.