[01. Responsibility
It is packaging when it becomes everyone's responsibility to everyone: in design, production and use.
Responsible is the quality packaging, which combines environmental protection and respect for the needs of all users.
Rethinking packaging in times of crisis: ethical implications and a systemic approach in packaging design
Contemporary crises, in their multiple manifestations, question current paradigms and force us to reflect on current models of production and consumption and, more generally, on our lifestyles. In this scenario, those who produce, design and use packaging are called to rethink packaging, considering the ethical implications and adopting a systemic approach to design, to allow a deeper and more balanced understanding of the impacts – positive and negative – of packaging on society and on the environment, and thus generate responsible innovation paths for the sector.
The term crisis comes from the Greek “krísis” which means “decision” and from the verb “kríno” which means “I decide, I separate, I judge”. It designates the moment in which a break occurs, a very marked change in something or in a situation: in a disease, in nature, in the life of a person or a community. As Ramon Alcoberro remind us, the word crisis has an agrarian origin, linked to the harvest of wheat: for an ancient Greek, crisis is the process that occurs when the wheat is separated from the chaff. This is an analytical separation to keep only the good or usable part of the crop.
The crisis, therefore, while constituting a situation of serious difficulty, does not necessarily have a negative meaning: the crisis is an opportunity to generate change, transformation, because it is the moment in which you have to make a decision, opt for a path and give up to another. This decision must be made cautiously, taking into account the consequences of each alternative. For this it is necessary to choose critically (from “kritikós”, “capable of discernment”) and with criterion, another Greek word that appears in this context (“kriterion”, with the meaning of “court of justice”).
Contemporary crises – of an environmental, but also social and economic type – are once again questioning current production and consumption systems, with particular attention to waste management and the impacts of packaging, above all those made of plastic. An important part of public opinion, in fact, still considers packaging one of the main causes of global pollution, the visible imprint of human activity, the symbol of the ephemeral and the superfluous, the tangible expression of the excesses of current models.
The controversy aroused by packaging, however, requires deep reflection, without falling into easy slogans and demagogic messages, as too often happens in certain #plasticfree or #nopackaging campaigns. In the first place, it is necessary to adopt a critical perspective, that is, “analytically separating what is good from what is bad” and, to take up the agrarian metaphor, preserve “the good or usable part of the harvest”; secondly, a systemic approach, balancing the multiple functions of packaging with its ethical responsibilities with respect to the market, society and the environment.
Packaging is a prosthesis, it is an artificial extension that constitutes a “plus” of performance, service and identity for the product. Packaging serves to protect, store and maintain consumer goods in good condition during transport, handling, storage, distribution and also during sale (plus performance); guarantees that a person can access its content and interact with it, and use the information on the label, such as warnings and instructions for use (plus service); it amplifies the brand identity to ensure its recognizability and “memorability” in increasingly saturated sales contexts (plus identity).
In everyday life, packaging favours the carrying out of basic activities such as feeding, taking care of one’s person, loved ones or animals, in the different contexts in which it operates: at home, at work, on the move. In more “extreme” situations – in the context, for example, of natural disasters, wars or health emergencies – packaging is a fundamental tool for guaranteeing the distribution of essential resources such as water, food and medicines, and helps prevent the spread of diseases.
For the many functions it performs in the contemporary scenario, packaging is therefore essential. Yet, its transitory and short-lived nature, its widespread diffusion in people’s daily lives, with a significant impact on society and the environment, do not cease to generate controversy.
Faced with the harrowing images of marine animals dead from packaging waste floating on the ocean’s surface, it seems legitimate to ask whether the removal of packaging, and especially plastic packaging, from the market would solve or at least mitigate the serious emergency. environment in which we find ourselves. However, rhetorically convincing as it is, the message that eliminating packaging can save the planet is not, in reality, a solution to global crises.
Although the effects on the environment of the packaging sector are perhaps the most visible (what floats on the surface of the oceans is in fact more easily perceptible and therefore subject to public opinion), it is not necessarily the one that pollutes the most. Other sectors have less obvious but no less damaging impacts. The fashion industry, for example, and the so-called “Fast Fashion” have significant repercussions on the well-being of the environment and living beings (chemical waste, microplastics, etc.), as well as on people (just think of the precarious working conditions and the exploitation of labor in developing countries, to mention one of the phenomena still strongly criticized today).
If we consider, then, the substantial reduction of air pollution in 2020 in the areas that where in lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, together with the icrease in masks thrown on the street (and which end up in ocean), it is confirmed once again that the problem of waste, climate change or social injustices is not the responsibility of inanimate objects such as packaging. Crises have been and still are a human responsibility: they depend on the choices that we, as individuals and as a community, make regarding the survival of the planet, and whether we are willing to change our behavior and our life habits.
It is therefore necessary to bring back to the center of reflection the notion of ethical responsibility introduced by the political scientist Max Weber (1919) and subsequently adopted by Hans Jonas (1979) as a basis for the definition of so-called sustainable development. The word ethics derives etymologically from the Greek term “ethos”, which means “behavior”, the word responsibility derives from the Latin “respondeo” and has the same origin as the verb “to respond”. The ethics of responsibility could therefore be defined as “behavior capable of responding to someone or something”. In other words, acting with ethical responsibility involves considering the effects and consequences of our actions, and it is precisely by anticipating these effects and consequences that decisions must be made.
If this concept is applied to the packaging sector, to address the current crises it is necessary to adopt ethical criteria throughout the life cycle of a product and to take into account, on the one hand, the specific impacts of each phase of the process and, on the other, of the co-responsibility of all the players in the supply chain: producers and processors, user companies, institutions, associations and consortia, as well as end users who play a decisive role in the purchase, consumption and post-consumption phases. A packaging must therefore be understood as the result of an integrated set of choices made by a plurality of subjects who each play a role – direct or indirect – in its definition.
Furthermore, due to the high complexity that characterizes it, the design of a packaging requires the intervention of different skills and the participation of multiple disciplinary areas, implying the adoption of a systemic approach. In this context, Design plays an important role of direction, mediation and design synthesis: designing a packaging means giving shape to a solution that is the place of convergence, on the one hand, of the perspectives, needs and choices expressed by the various parties involved; on the other hand, of the multiple functions of the artefact, referring to the communicative dimension as well as to the more strictly performance and operational one.
The adoption of an ethical and systemic approach, in addition to allowing a more conscious and balanced reading of the impacts – positive and negative – of packaging on society and the environment, can generate new paths of innovation for the packaging sector. Innovation that in most cases has so far been limited to interventions aimed at improving the consumer experience or ensuring better protection and conservation of products thanks to technological evolution.
Designing or redesigning packaging in times of crisis, and in view of a more sustainable future, therefore means questioning consolidated models, and proposing solutions that have a positive impact on people and the planet, according to a perspective of ethical innovation, oriented towards well-being and quality of life (“life-centered” approach).
The reflection underlying this article and the topics it deals with were presented during the meeting “The Good Packaging: ethical implications and systemic approach in packaging design”, held on June 6 2022 at Spazio Cosimo10, as part of the events organized by the Italian Packaging Institute and the Packaging Ethical Charter Foundation on the occasion of Fuorisalone 2022 in Milan.
For more information on the project “The Good Packaging”: https://linktr.ee/thegoodpackaging
