The answer is most definitely yes, the bar is often times higher and the standards and expectations are quite different compared to non-green products. After reading Joel Makower's recent article on "Why Doesn't Green = Better," I reluctantly admit in many cases green is not necessarily better. In fact, at times green only slightly resembles green.
Exaggerations, distortions and outright lies are unfortunately still commonplace as desperate manufacturers with sagging traditional non-green product sales, attempt to survive by putting a light coat of green tint on their same old products. It is often more about green marketing than it is about green design or manufacturing.
The Scale and Scope of Green Progress
However, I am glad to say that industry as a whole has made tremendous strides in certain areas: some cateogories are filled with products that have become very green, largely because of innovative manufacturing's response to market requirements.
For example, in my relatively narrow slice of green life, which we call "secondary packaging materials," the industry is creating new and better products on an almost daily basis. For those who equate better with "cheaper" that may not be true across the board, but the sizable green price gap that once existed has completely disappeared on some products and is fading quickly on others. This shift is happening as a restul of increased competition in the green space and buyers who both demand green attributes and are more focused on cost than ever before.
The fact is that over the course of the last two years we have witnessed the introduction and growth of products like biodegradable, compostable and oxo-degradable shrink films, stretch films and other polyethylene products. This includes inflatable void fill (air pillows) and cushioning products that are now offered in 100 percent recycled content or 100 percent biodegradable plastics.
Even traditional green (paper-based) products such as paperboard and corrugated are now offering improved versions containing more recycled content, in some cases 100 percent post consumer waste to help solve our fast growing paper waste problem. The corrugated and paperboard industries have also responded to tougher applications by creating products able to provide moisture barrier protection without the use of petroleum-based waxes or polyethylene coatings.
Green packaging has come a long way in a very short period of time but often times, consumers and the market do not see it that way. Why is that?
Green Quality Expectations Vs. Results
Returning to Makower's article, if people are not happy with the quality of green products, it may be in part because their expectations are unrealistic or even unfair.
I have discovered that many of the most common perceptions people have about green packaging products are simply out of date. It can be a constant struggle to keep up with our rapidly changing industry, and my company's full-time job is buying and selling green packaging. Given that, what chance does an over-worked and often understaffed buyer have of staying current if packaging represents a relatively small percentage of their overall annual buy?
I may ask a question like, "Are you attending the packaging show," or "did you see the article on sustainability in this month's issue of X magazine?" The response is quite often a chuckle or look of frustration that confirms an absolute lack of time to deal with anything that does not have to be absolutely dealt with today. Even when people have the desire and time to learn; in the current economy many companies have simply cut off funds for training and ongoing education.
So it becomes more convenient -- if not exactly efficient -- to utilize inaccurate and outdated perceptions that may have been true just a year or two ago.
For example, manufacturers of 100 percent PCW paperboard or corrugated would admit the quality of the product they produced three to four years ago was not nearly as good or as strong as it is today. Like any other manufacturing process using a variety of substrate sources, it has improved, and the end result is a much better box or case. So if buyers’ expectations or opinions are based on old test data or product samples, they won’t be receptive to the new and improved product. Likewise, in the area of plastic packaging, I am testing and seeing biodegradable pallet stretch wrap films with excellent elongation and puncture resistance that were not available a short six months ago.
Education remains the most important objective of green packaging suppliers, because everything else depends on having an informed buyer able to understand and appreciate the benefits of a new or redesigned green product.
People Tend to See What They Expect to See
We have found that even when the quality of green packaging products is demonstrated, tested and proven, customer acceptance can still be a challenge. For example, we have had the same shipping product tested multiple times by the same customer because they did not believe or trust the results of their own ship test.
If the end user does not expect the product to perform well, then he or she will be somewhat befuddled and disbelieving when it does. In other words, there is a firm expectation of poor quality.
I have also come to believe that price competitiveness has factored in to this anticipation of poor quality. When a buyer encounters a green product with a newly reduced price, a common misconception is that manufacturers must have "made it cheaper" somehow, that quality suffers before cost-competitiveness improves.
Consumer confusion is usually the end result when you combine these negative preconceived notions, legitimate negative history and a lot of misinformation, usually enthusiastically provided by a company's (non-green) incumbent supplier. When you have little time to do your own homework, it becomes more efficient in terms of time to trust your old friend who has been supplying you product for years.
'The Pioneer Takes the Arrows'
That is a favorite quote of a former co-worker, and nothing could be truer when it comes to sustainability. My observations above are not complaints or sour grapes; most of what I described is simply part of the process and what it takes to help develop a new market.
However, I do look forward to a time when all green products and green companies are fairly and accurately graded as authentic, and their quality is real, obvious and readily accepted by the skeptical market they serve. Until then, I'm afraid Mr. Makower is right that Green ≠ Better.
Dennis Salazar is the president of Salazar Packaging Inc.