Most of the environmental decision is made before the material is chosen
Which polymer you pick matters. What matters more is how much of it you use, whether the pack can be separated for recycling, and whether the parcel was dimensioned to the product or to the courier’s next price tier. Those three decisions are made at the design stage, and none of them can be recovered later by choosing a greener material.
The four levers, in order of effect
Right-size the pack
Less material, less air, fewer cartons on the pallet. In e-commerce this is also the cheapest lever — a box that sits inside the courier’s dimensional tier saves money and material at the same time.
One material where possible
A PET box with a paper sleeve is two waste streams and cannot be separated by most consumers. A single-material pack with the print applied directly is usually the better answer, even when the sleeve looks more premium.
Choose the recyclable stream
PET is collected and reprocessed in most European markets; PVC is not, in most municipal systems. That is why PET is our default and PVC is offered as the alternative rather than the reverse.
Recycled content
GRS-certified recycled PET is available with chain-of-custody documentation. It is not automatically suitable for direct food contact — that depends on the specific grade and its approvals, not on the certificate.
What our certificates do and do not mean
| Standard | What it covers | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| BSCI | Social compliance — working conditions, hours, health and safety at the production site | Nothing about the material or the product’s environmental performance |
| GRS | Recycled content with chain of custody, from feedstock to finished article | That the item is recyclable, or that it is food-contact approved |
| ISO 9001:2015 | Quality management system — that a documented process exists and is followed | Any specific product quality level or environmental claim |
| FSC | Fibre from certified, responsibly managed forests, for our paper lines | Anything about the plastic lines |
Certificates are frequently asked for as a package. They answer four different questions, and a buyer who needs one of them rarely needs all four. The details are on the certificates page.
What we will not claim
- Carbon neutral. We have not had a life-cycle assessment carried out on our products, so we have no figure to base that on.
- “100% recyclable” as a blanket statement. Recyclability depends on the local collection stream, the print coverage, and whether the pack is separated — a laminated multi-material pack frequently is not.
- Biodegradable, unless a specific certified grade is used for a specific order. Standard PET and PVC are not.
What we can provide instead: the material and weight of every component per unit, so that an assessment run on your side has real inputs rather than estimates. For most buyers that is more useful than a supplier’s own claim, because it is the number their own reporting has to use.
Where the trade-offs actually sit
A heavier paper box is not automatically lower impact than a light plastic one: the fibre source, the recycled content and the transport weight all count. A rigid gift box with a foam insert can be the highest-material option on this site, and sometimes it is still the right one — for a product that will be kept, the packaging’s own footprint is a small part of the total.
The honest version is that the answer depends on the run length, the market, and what happens to the pack after the sale. We will say which lever applies to your case rather than quoting a policy.
Trying to meet a specific requirement?
Send the target — a recycled content percentage, a single-material mandate, a retailer’s packaging spec. We will tell you what is achievable and what it costs.