Design can be transformative, changing the world and helping solve some of our biggest problems. Adobe and Dieline are big proponents of brands and creatives addressing plastic pollution and climate change crises through thoughtful and innovative design.
The Adobe Sustainable Design Awards recognize and amplify some of the most meaningful solutions from the world of packaging design and the contribution they make towards making the planet a better place. In its inaugural year, the 2021 winners sport a diverse range of products, firms, and approaches, and they all share a common goal; making life more sustainable for consumers while reducing our dependence on harmful materials like plastic or enabling brands to rely more on reusable packaging.
Eco Pods
The little plastic bottles you find in your hotel bathroom are convenient but terrible for the environment, and due to their small size, you often can’t recycle them. Eco Pods are both plastic-free and compostable. Since the products inside are in dry, powder form, they’re also smaller and lighter than conventional single-use toiletries, and that helps reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.
Plus, Eco Pods’ innovative solution to hotel toiletries doesn’t take away from a guest’s experience, and it comes at a time when many hoteliers such as Disney, InterContinental, Marriot, and others have ditched or are pledging to remove single-use plastic bottles.
Good Juju
The plastic pollution crisis can’t be fixed just with recycling, despite the decades-long con perpetrated by corporations manufacturing and selling goods in plastic packaging. According to the EPA, a little less than 9% of plastic gets recycled. A better solution is to create packaging that genuinely disappears when it reaches its end-of-life.
Good Juju is packaging designed to do just that. The products and packaging get developed to minimize the environmental impact, using waterless formulas, outer carton sleeves made out of millboard produced from paper manufacturing waste, and inner sleeves from GMO-free corn foam that naturally and safely dissolves. Visually, Good Juju has a harmonious, feminine vibe and celebrates the natural world.
Giannotti
Plastic waste and the fashion industry go hand in hand, particularly with its reliance on synthetic materials like polyester. Fashion firms use plastic in other ways, including plastic hangers, tags, and bags. With the increase in online clothes shopping, our fashion choices generate even more waste with shipping materials.
Knitwear brand Giannotti wants to make high-fashion more sustainable using biodegradable materials for the clothing itself, creating fabrics from coffee grounds and merino wool, and utilizing 3D weaving technology to reduce waste. Boxes get made of minimally processed recyclable cardboard and bioplastic bags comprised of cornstarch.
Sequent Mono Packaging
Packaging in the technology and luxury sector often gets made using more than one material. Small details like fabric pull tabs and plastic inserts, while enhancing the unboxing experience, make curbside recycling difficult, as these different materials have to be separated and sorted. Wrapology delivers pulp-based molded solutions that are mono-material, recyclable, naturally degradable, made from non-food-competitive organic waste, and made ethically.
Wrapology’s molded fiber material is used to remarkable effect in packaging for smartwatch Sequent. Unlike popular wrist computers like Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Gear, or Fitbit Versa, Sequent comes designed to quietly track activity with an analog watch face and dial that blends Bauhaus with cyberpunk. The watch is kinetically charged by movement, like a traditional watch, but also has an app, like a modern smartwatch. Sequent’s packaging is sustainable, protects the goods, and makes no compromises in presentation.
Moi
Lipstick today is usually sold in unrecyclable and rarely refillable plastic tubes. Makeup users also typically purchase and use more than one kind, color, or type of lipstick. Moi is a concept that uses a refillable and smart dispenser that eliminates the need for those pesky single-use tubes.
3D printed cases can get refilled at self-serve kiosks, and they dispense lipstick from hundreds of tiny nozzles powered by piezoelectric components that vibrate and release “ink” by the drop. Users can change the kind of color and finish using the same Moi dispenser. Moi dispensers also use AI technology to map users’ lips, allowing them to apply the cosmetics efficiently, creating a fuss-free, perfect look that also cuts down on waste.
ÖLOBOX
Some of our favorite snacks come inside of natural packaging, like shelled nuts and some fruit. Cracking open a bag of roasted peanuts means those shells have to go somewhere, and that’s usually another bag or container of some sort, or one could toss them on the floor like a savage.
Olkas Voron designed the snack container concept ÖLOBOX with an integrated husk compartment where shells and other inedible components can reside. Once finished, you can dispose of the package neatly, husks, shells, pits, rinds, and all. The cone form is ergonomic when held, and the shape and deployment of the trash triangle found inspiration in the circular recycling symbol.
You can find the rest of the 2021 Adobe Sustainable Design Award winners here.
