Balancing Environmental Performance with Sales Functionalities in Packaging for Consumer Electronic Products

Two major changes are currently taking place in the world of Consumer Electronics. They are, first, the relocation of production to low-wage countries, in particularly China. This results in longer distribution distances, which lead to a higher relative importance of this phase in the entire life cycle. To make this phase as efficient as possible, products should be packed as volume efficient as possible, which means small boxes. Secondly, retail formats for CE products change into large budget-oriented stores selling products in the box. Here the packaging has to sell the product, which calls for bigger, shinier boxes. Obviously the combination of these developments leads to design conflicts. This paper addresses how to manage this design challenge in such a way that the environmental impact of the packaging does not get unnecessarily high.