Mark Lyttleton is a professional business mentor, speaker, and angel investor who takes a special interest in early-stage businesses launched to achieve a positive planetary impact. This article will look at Pulpex, a company specializing in sustainable packaging technology that has developed a first-of-its-kind, patented, single-mold paper bottle that has been adopted for use by the company’s global partners.
In response to concerns over plastic waste, governments all over the world are increasingly imposing and tightening regulations regarding plastics and packaging that will ultimately impact consumer choice. For example, to date, more than 120 countries worldwide have scheduled or already implemented a ban on single-use plastic.
Pulpex was founded with the objective of facilitating a successful transition of a portion of plastic and glass packaging to a sustainable, recyclable pulp alternative using existing industrial manufacturing and filling infrastructure. Pulpex’s business model provides a viable, valuable, and financeable solution to the issue of plastic waste on a scale that previous sustainable packaging technologies simply failed to achieve.
Pulpex’s unique packaging solution relies on technological innovation to deliver highly anticipated and much-needed eco-packaging category change. The company’s patented technology enables brands to re-evaluate their packaging proposition, helping companies to achieve their sustainability goals. In contrast, Pulpex’s extensive partnership network enables the company to convert end-products on an industrial scale.
Increased public awareness regarding climate change, plastic pollution, and other environmental issues is driving changes in consumer behaviours, increasing demand for renewable, biodegradable, recyclable, and minimal plastic packaging. As a result, some of the world’s biggest brands are investing heavily in finding ready-to-go, scalable, and economically viable solutions, which have proven limited until now.
The Pulpex company came into existence through a collaboration between the Pilot Lite venture management company and Diageo, the company best known as the makers of Guinness, Smirnoff, and Johnnie Walker. Proven, patented, and scalable, Pulpex is ready to commence the deployment of products globally, heralding an exciting and more sustainable future.
As Diageo’s Chief Sustainability Officer Ewan Andrew explained, Pulpex’s bottle has the potential to be truly groundbreaking. With sustainability and CSR regarded as fundamental inclusions in corporate strategy today, the world’s biggest brands strive to anticipate rather than merely react to changes in consumer demand. In addition, today’s consumers are prioritizing sustainable packaging, with many willing to pay a premium for products from brands implementing sustainable packaging choices.
Caught between corporates and government, retailers are also increasingly taking the lead, eliminating certain materials from packaging chains and, in the process, enhancing their own credentials as socially responsible advocates for a more sustainable approach. Pulpex presents brands with the opportunity to rethink their packaging proposition. The company’s recyclable, biodegradable, and renewable pulp bottles have the potential to provide significant improvements in comparison with the carbon footprint of glass bottles, offering savings of up to 90% – and up to 30% when compared with PET bottles. Pulpex bottles also address recycling rates and access to recycling infrastructure by eliminating harmful plastic fibers.
Available in a variety of customizable shapes, enabling distinctive brand packaging forms to simply be translated into identifiable pulp bottles, Pulpex further enhances brand identity by implementing sustainable colored pigments through its patented technology, as well as providing facilities for additional decoration through the embossing, labeling, and direct print process.
As global demand for sustainable alternatives to PET and glass bottles increases, Pulpex is collaborating closely with industry leaders from across the globe, including huge multinational organizations operating in a broad range of consumer goods sectors. Collectively, their goal is to harness the ecological advantages of pulp, championing a revolutionary new approach to packaging – a hot topic on virtually every sustainability and CSR agenda.
