Impact Of Luxury Packaging On Environment

Luxury packaging can be termed as a specialized industry in the world of packaging. If you compare luxury packaging with the packaging as a whole, you will find it a small proportion. However, the environmental impact of it is quite heavier. It is worth mentioning here that luxury packaging has proven to be highly profitable. However, it is environment that has to pay the price of this profitability.

What is luxury packaging?

Luxury packaging is basically the specialty packaging which is a method to secure and promote the luxury products. It can also be seen as an expression of the image of the brand. The main purpose of this packaging is to elaborate the lifestyle associated with the products and the people who use those products.

Research shows that customers are usually willing to pay more when there is a high end and visually appealing packaging on the product. Another thing about luxury packaging is that it adds value to the product. It does so by ensuring better engagement with the customer.

Another functionality the luxury packaging provides is the unboxing experience. An amazing unboxing is basically a wow factor that you add to the packaging in order to appeal the customers who are willing to pay more for a luxury product.

According to a stat, the luxury packaging is expected to grow by 4.4% during 2019. The luxury packaging market is around $17.6 billion. With the growth according in the forecasted pace, the value of luxury packaging is expected to reach somewhere close to $23 Billion by 2021.

Luxury Packaging Demographics

Wealthy people are the ones who like to spend money luxury items. If you do not care about a tag of $1000 for a dress, you actually have a luxurious lifestyle.

The people who buy luxury items usually expect the packaging to be equal to the product in terms of quality and style.

Considering the fact that the customers who like to spend extra money to buy luxury items make up a small segment of a customer base, you may tend to question the profitability of the luxury packaging. But the matter of fact is that the luxury packaging industry is booming. You may find it surprising that elite buyers purchase up to 10 billion tons of luxury packaging items.

The environmental impact

The discussion about financial costs of luxury packaging may not yield a definite result but you will be shocked at the environmental costs of this type of packaging. Since single stream recycling has turned out to be a failed experiment, the impact of luxury packaging on environment can be quite alarming.

One of the downsides of luxury packaging is that they have many materials bonded together, making it almost impossible to recycle such items. This can end the generation of non-recyclable waste as soon as you are done with the unboxing of the product.

However, the good news is that companies have started working on the initiative to collect the packaging wastes created due to the unboxing of luxury items in order to recycle the materials and make it useful again. As a matter of fact, companies have working in the direction of creating the luxury packaging which can be recycled fully.