Beer packaging gets ecologically creative

More breweries are exploring alternative designs and using eco-conscious beer packaging to meet sustainability goals. The sustainable packaging business DS Smith Group has recently branched out to collaborate with more breweries, bringing the beer sector ever closer to becoming more eco-aware and finding ways to cut emissions. As part of the move, DS Smith has partnered with the Slovakia-based Martins Brewery for recyclable beer bottle packaging, incorporating a simple unboxing experience and an interactive design. The collaboration also followed the group working with Carlsberg Poland where it trialled rounded-corner packs to reduce space and make the beer company’s packaging 17% lighter, enabling it to cut CO2 emissions by 224 tonnes per year once fully implemented. For Martins Brewery, Packaging Insights revealed that DS Smith has now developed six-handle packaging made from fully recycled materials with an eco-friendly adhesive. Its simple construction and manual folding reportedly eliminate the need for complex machinery or special equipment. DS Smith Group subregional managing director Martin Němec told reporters: “We are thrilled to collaborate with Martins Brewery and to produce a solution with an innovative, interactive, and memorable component. Our design team also set out to support this customer in reducing the volume and number of materials, focusing on keeping these materials in use for longer.” According to the company, the corrugated box has a folding system that creates six individual beer bottle compartments. Plus, on the inside, the brewery has designed interactive puzzles as a way for its customers to explore the brand’s sociable ethos. Martins Brewery CEO Norbert Pilka explained: “We wanted to combine ‘logically ecological beer’ with sustainable packaging, and the design concept immediately catches the customer’s attention in a retail environment.” Pilka added: “The packaging contains maths and fun tasks that reflect the individuality of the Martins Brewery brand for our customers. The puzzles, like the recyclable packaging, can be reused.” DS Smith said that to create the new beer packs, the business has applied “its circular design metric tool that measures and quantifies the sustainability performance of its packaging products across eight different indicators: carbon footprint, reuse, supply chain optimisation, recyclability, and material utilisation to recycled content”. The sustainable packaging business also revealed that the move to work with more breweries is part of its wider environmental impact strategy, named Now and Next, which aims to show its commitment to helping companies transition to a circular economy.