The True Face of Beauty Packaging Innovation

The beauty industry thrives on boundary-pushing, trend-setting, and the relentless pursuit of innovation. From exotic plant extracts, to the latest chemical concoctions, to unconventional ingredients like snail mucin and bee venom, there’s always a novel innovation entering the marketplace.  

While consumers are often more familiar with a product’s contents than its packaging, consumer awareness of the full impact of the products we buy continues to grow. With over 3.1 billion trees, many from the most climate-critical, biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, felled for packaging each year, the time for change can’t come soon enough.  Luckily, the opportunities for boundary-pushing, trend-setting innovation in beauty packaging are as boundless as the sector itself.  

In the search of more sustainable materials, particularly compared to plastic, paper is often marketed as an innovative, eco-friendly alternative. But is it? Unlike beauty products themselves, which have undergone dramatic improvements since the early 20^th century, paper packaging remains largely unchanged – still primarily made from trees. 

Over the last century, vast swathes of forests, including irreplaceable Ancient and Endangered Forests, have been and continue to be destroyed and degraded to produce paper packaging, including for the beauty and self-care sectors.  

While it’s true that once a forest is logged, trees can be replanted, grow, and be cut again, the forest that grows back looks and functions nothing like the original forest it replaced. Ancient and Endangered Forests are complex ecosystems that have developed over millennia and are essential to sustaining the health of the Earth’s species and to stabilizing the climate. While trees may be able to be replanted, Ancient and Endangered Forests are irreplaceable. 

To try and address this issue, many brands rely on forest certification schemes like FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) to ensure their paper products are derived from sustainably managed forests. FSC certification is a significant step forward. As the only credible, and globally consistent, forest certification system, it provides assurances that logging is done in a more environmentally and socially responsible way. Having said that, FSC is not a panacea that can solve all our problems. Companies also need comprehensive approaches to eliminate risk to Ancient and Endangered Forests and use innovative next-generation fibre solutions that do not put these ecosystems at risk.

Ultimately, the take-make-waste model at the heart of forest-based paper packaging is harmful, and outdated. We need to think outside the traditional box for solutions that meet packaging demands while preserving vital forests. 

Canopy is connected to an ever-growing cadre of leading innovators that are revolutionizing the way paper packaging is made. Companies like ReStalk, in the US, and Craste, in India, convert left-over agricultural waste like wheat straw into paper packaging, which would otherwise be burned. US based Genera uses miscanthus grass, while ReLeaf in Europe is turning fallen leaves into paper and packaging.  

Countless other companies are pushing the innovation envelope, transforming natural, renewable, low-impact materials like seaweed, mushrooms, and even mouldy food waste into paper and packaging with endless possibilities for end uses, including for luxury beauty products.  

These innovations not only reduce pressure on Ancient and Endangered Forests, but they lower scope 3 emissions, and help address supply chain risk, land-use impacts, biodiversity loss, and excess urban green waste. In fact, compared to paper packaging made from virgin forests, these Next Generation alternatives, along with recycled paper, use 4 tonnes less CO2 per tonne of product, have five times lower impact on biodiversity, and have 88-100% less land use impacts.   

Increasingly, customers seek products with minimal environmental impacts. Brands need to respond to growing demand, while upholding high standards for their products functionality and aesthetics. Incorporating Next Generation packaging materials lets brands align with consumer values, meet their climate and sustainability goals faster, and enhance shelf appeal with truly innovative packaging.

Looking ahead, the beauty industry’s commitment to sustainability and innovation in packaging is not a trend, but a necessary evolution. By continuing to explore and invest in alternative materials and circular production methods, the industry can make a significant impact on our planet’s health and its own sustainability credentials. 

Saving forests never goes out of style.

Not plastic. Not paper. Better.