In today's fast-paced world, the demand for sustainable packaging and labeling has become an essential priority for businesses. As covered in Avery’s report, globally, labels and packaging legislation is more focused on sustainability than ever before.
As consumer awareness regarding environmental issues continues to rise, companies are finding themselves under increasing pressure to adopt eco-friendly practices. Traditional labeling and artwork management processes have long been a culprit of excessive waste and inefficiency.
This blog explores the environmental impact of traditional labeling, and how adopting online, cloud-based, automated software that uses label templates can transform your process. We'll also delve into a real-world example of food packaging labels to illustrate the sustainable journey from design to market.
The Environmental Impact of Traditional Labeling
Traditional labeling and artwork processes often involve multiple manual steps, which contribute significantly to environmental concerns. From the design phase to the actual label printing, each step can result in waste and excess resource consumption. Let's break it down and explore how each stage affects the environment:
- Design Phase: Traditional label and artwork design often relies on paper prototypes and multiple iterations, which results in excessive paper consumption, ink usage, and waste. Many iterations are necessary to perfect the label, leading to more environmental impact.
- Label Printing: With a large proportion of labels in the UK still being printed on materials that are difficult to recycle - even materials that look like paper are often not - it’s more important than ever to reduce waste where possible. Conventional label printing usually involves large print runs, which can result in overproduction. Unused labels are discarded, leading to wastage of materials and energy. Additionally, printing errors are common, avoiding reprints and further environmental harm. This is where it’s crucial that labels are printed correctly the first time.
- Distribution: Transporting printed labels to various locations can result in carbon emissions, thanks to the heavy logistical footprint of shipping and transportation.
Embracing Sustainability with Cloud-Based platforms and Label Templates
With online, cloud-based, automated software that uses tools like label templates, there are a whole host of benefits that are music to the ears of environmentally conscious businesses:
- Sustainable Labeling Templates: These platforms provide a range of customizable, pre-designed templates for sustainable labels. They help in reducing the need for excessive design iterations, resulting in less paper and ink waste. For our food packaging labels example, a nutrition label template that complies with FDA label requirements can be easily accessed and modified.
- Reduced Errors and Waste: Labeling errors can be incredibly time consuming and costly as well as posing serious safety risks. For example, Trustwell recently reported that undeclared allergens made up the largest percentage of recalls overall, making up 47% of all recalls in 2022 and 63% of recalls in 2023, so far - something which can easily be solved with proper artwork management.
One of our biggest pharmaceutical customers typically dealt with around one error per month and since using Kallik’s solution they have experienced no errors at all. In the case of traditional labeling and artwork, mistakes can result in reprinting, wasted labels, and increased resource consumption. However, label templates and proofreading tools significantly minimize the risk of human errors in label design by having a pre-approved bank of assets that can be simply dropped into templates that meet all the relevant regulations for the product. - Efficient Printing: With cloud-based software, labels can be printed on-demand or in smaller, more precise quantities. This eliminates overproduction and minimizes discarded labels. The use of digital printing technology, which is often more eco-friendly, further reduces environmental impact.
- Making it easy to switch packaging materials: Digital platforms are becoming instrumental in adapting to sustainable packaging goals. In addition to minimizing physical waste, with label templates, it is becoming quicker and easier than ever to adapt your packaging to be more sustainable. Customizable, pre-designed templates mean that the once colossal task of changing the size and design of thousands of labels to suit paper packaging rather than plastic can now be done with the click of a few buttons.
A Sustainable Journey: Food Packaging Labels
Now, let's walk through the process of creating sustainable food packaging labels using online, futureproof, cloud-based software:
- Design Phase: Start by selecting a nutrition label template that meets FDA label requirements. Customize it to your brand's specifications, ensuring it complies with sustainable labeling guidelines. Online software streamlines the design process, making it efficient and reducing paper and ink waste.
- Collaboration and Approval: Cloud-based solutions enable team collaboration and instant feedback. Stakeholders can review the label design in real-time, reducing the need for multiple drafts and printed proofs. This step significantly minimizes waste and saves time.
- On-Demand Printing: Once the label design is approved, you can print labels on-demand or in small batches, eliminating overproduction and reducing unnecessary waste. Digital printing technology is environmentally friendly and ensures high-quality, eco-conscious labels.
- Distribution: With labels ready to go, you can efficiently distribute them to your products without the need for extensive logistics and long shipping routes, further reducing your carbon footprint.
Take the Next Step Towards Sustainability with Kallik
As businesses look for more sustainable options in labeling and packaging, it's evident that traditional processes fall short in environmental terms. Embracing online, cloud-based software, like Kallik's AWS hosted solution, recommended by Gartner, you can revolutionize the way you approach labeling and reduce your environmental impact.
By adopting sustainable label templates, reducing errors, and optimizing label printing, you can actively contribute to a greener future for your company. To see the power of cloud-based labeling and artwork management software for yourself, get in touch to book a demo with one of Kallik’s experts today. Don’t just take our word for it, see what our customers have to say about Kallik in our case studies here. Alternatively, why not give one of our previous blogs a read to learn more about how the supreme security and reliability of cloud-based software can help your business.
