Echo Brand Design joins forces with 19 European partners on circular economy ‘Buddie-Pack’ project

Packaging Solutions Green Solutions

London based innovation and design agency Echo has announced its involvement in a European Union backed, reusable plastic packaging project titled ‘Buddie-Pack’.

Plastic bears numerous amazing properties: it is light, durable, aesthetic, easily and cheaply manufactured, has excellent protective barrier properties, and can include many functional features adding to the user benefit. But whilst it has vast applicability, its single use is damaging to our environment, and although many have attempted to mitigate its harmful effects by switching to alternative materials, rarely do these have the rounded benefits of plastic. One significant solution to this is to consider a durable returnable plastic system that works to keep plastic out of our environment and ecosystems. Enter: ‘Buddie-Pack’.

The new initiative works to implement a systemic approach for the large scale deployment of reusable plastic packaging (RPP), with the outcome of dramatically cutting down the production of single use plastic packaging, reducing water and energy consumption and avoiding the release of microplastics into the oceans.

With sustainable design as the key pillar to all of Echo’s project work, the agency offers its expertise of renewable packaging, sustainable communication and product solutions alongside an in-depth knowledge of their application to encourage more sustainable consumer behaviours. The 19 businesses involved in the project, spanning six countries, enter the partnership with the shared goal of meeting the EU’s sustainability targets.

Andy Capper, co-founder and creative director of Echo, commented: ‘Circular packaging and systems are the future, but it is challenging for brands to make a fundamental switch after a hundred years of perfecting one way packaging. Being part of this amazing programme offers an opportunity to make a big impact on the future of packaging, using our design, insight and technical understanding, builds a deep knowledge of all the challenges that we can apply to our commercial work going forward.’

Based on innovative designs, recyclable material use, and a multidisciplinary approach combining social, technological, and economic innovations, Buddie-Pack will develop manufactured packaging fulfilling the demanding requirements of RPP. The project will focus on innovative cleaning solutions to guarantee the safety of consumers against the possible contamination and ageing of RPP during their repeated use, and the durability of their functional properties to avoid food spoilage up to 300 cycles.

Viable economic models will ensure the sustainability of the proposed solutions thanks to the profitability of stakeholders throughout the value chain, including solutions based on social and solidarity economy models.