Luxury cosmetics and industrial electronics don't have a ton in common, at least not at first glance. One sells aspiration and sensorial experience. The other ships fragile, high-performance devices that don’t often play nice with the dust or humidity that can be part of long global supply chains.
But during a sustainability-focused webinar convened by materials supplier Milliken and moderated by Milliken's Alicia Harmon, packaging leaders from The Estée Lauder Companies and Schneider Electric found surprising common ground.
The session, titled “Roadmap to 2030: Evaluating Industry Milestones and Material Innovation in Packaging Sustainability,” brought together brand owners navigating carbon targets, regulatory pressure, and shifting material landscapes. (The full webinar is available here: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/5175895/059DE6ECFACF40944C50A849564429F9.)
Each company has already embedded sustainability into formal corporate targets, and each is feeling the regulatory pressure that comes with that. What they’ve learned is that packaging can’t be retrofitted at the end of development. It has to be designed in.
“We can do so much more if we start at the very conception of an idea rather than trying to make all these big moves later on down the line after a design already heading down the track,” said Maya Ezzeddine, R&D sustainability technical leader at Schneider Electric.
“The environmental and the materials part of it absolutely needs to be considered and integrated upfront,” added Hervé Buzot, director of global packaging development for Clinique makeup and fragrance at The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC).
Under pressure to meet 2030 targets while protecting margins and brand equity, the panelists agreed that sustainable packaging requires early integration with cross-functional teams, along with disciplined design thinking.
Sustainability as a Culture Shift
At Schneider Electric, packaging decisions are tied directly to broader decarbonization goals. The company is working to reduce Scope 3 emissions 25% by 2030 from a 2021 baseline while continuing to grow.
“I always talk with our R&D engineers and our different stakeholders, and I say even if sustainability is not in your title, sustainability is still part of your job description,” Ezzeddine said.
Transformation, she noted, does not happen in isolation and cannot be left to a single team operating adjacent to product development.
At ELC, sustainability integration supports stronger business planning from the outset. Material decisions influence timing, cost of goods, aesthetic positioning, and regulatory compliance simultaneously. Considering environmental requirements at inception helps prevent late-stage redesigns and cost surprises.
For organizations beginning or accelerating their sustainability journey, the structural lesson is foundational: ensure sustainability criteria are embedded into stage-gate reviews, cost modeling, supplier selection, and design briefs from the start.
Regulatory Volatility and Material Uncertainty
For global brands, sustainability strategy is shaped not only by carbon targets but by shifting regulatory landscapes and evolving material availability.
“The frequent changes in regulations and the evolutions of the materials’ availability, this is something that we constantly have to work with,” Buzot said. “3, 4, 5 years ago, we could work with certain materials that were giving us great results. We no longer can.”
Between shifting recyclability standards, expanding EPR laws, and region-by-region compliance rules, long-term packaging planning can feel like aiming at a moving target.
That volatility reinforces the importance of flexibility. A material that looks viable today may not clear regulatory hurdles three years from now, panelists warned. Teams that rely too heavily on a single solution can find themselves scrambling. Most companies are hedging by qualifying alternatives early and watching policy shifts in their key markets closely.
Sustainable packaging design increasingly requires anticipating regulatory direction, not merely reacting to current rules.
Access the webinar by clicking here.
Protection and Premium-ization Remain Paramount
In electronics, packaging needs to protect against impact, dust, and humidity across global shipping routes. Products range widely in size and weight, and failure in transit is not an option.
“We need to make sure that as they're being shipped from one location to another, they're still able to arrive in full integrity,” Ezzeddine said.
Paper-based alternatives, for example, can introduce dust contamination in certain applications. Substitutions have to be evaluated in context of performance requirements.
In cosmetics, the mandate differs but remains uncompromising. Packaging communicates luxury, drives impulse purchase, and shapes repurchase intent.
“The whole game for us in the cosmetics and beauty industry is to try to achieve those goals while continuing to elevate and premium-ize, so to speak, the package and make the brand perception be as elevated as possible,” Buzot said.
None of that changes the basic requirement: the package still has to work. It still has to sell.
Cost, Complexity, and the Perception Problem
The assumption sustainable means more expensive, less aesthetically refined, and harder to execute, still lingers among many CPG leadership structures.
“I think that a sustainable package is somehow less elevated, somehow will cost more, will be more complex to make,” said Drew Lanza, Creative Director at Syntax.
In practice, the panelists described a more nuanced dynamic.
“You can make things better, nicer, prettier, at really reasonable costs,” Buzot said.
In some cases, redesigning architecture unlocks budget flexibility. Buzot described projects where a fragrance cap initially designed in five pieces was re-engineered into three.
“When you start digging, well, you end up doing it in three,” he explained. Fewer components reduced assembly and tooling costs. “Now all of a sudden you can afford sustainable materials.”
At Schneider Electric, a certified bio-based plastic derived from agricultural byproducts replaced a virgin resin in one application.
“We lowered our carbon footprint and saved money all at the same time,” Ezzeddine said.
Material swaps alone rarely create transformative results. Rethinking part count, assembly methods, and structural efficiency often creates the financial headroom required to incorporate more sustainable inputs.
Designing with Less
Sustainability efforts often intersect with operational efficiency.
Reducing material weight lowers resin usage, decreases transportation emissions, and may reduce cycle times. Eliminating assembly steps simplifies manufacturing and improves throughput. Harmonizing components across product lines can streamline inventory and tooling investments.
In fragrance, lightweighting glass challenges traditional assumptions about luxury signaling while reducing carbon footprint. A heavy bottle has long communicated value. That cue can evolve through refined form, finish, and design language.
In electronics, engineered corrugated cradles eliminate plastic inserts, reduce part count, and simplify packing lines.
“Simplicity sometimes is really the best solution,” Ezzeddine said.
In many cases, the same move that trims carbon trims cost. Strip out a component or lighten a wall and the math starts to change. Fewer parts, fewer molds, and less resin make for lower cost.
Minimalism and Monomaterials Gain Ground
Across categories, simplification emerged as a consistent theme.
“Minimalism sometimes equals elegance too, if it’s done right,” Buzot said.“For improved recycling, definitely monomaterials.”
Aluminum caps, monomaterial lipstick formats, and mono-polypropylene-based systems support recyclability while maintaining aesthetic integrity when engineered carefully.
“It’s easy to design complicated things. It’s hard to design simple things,” Buzot observed, recalling:
"I’ve seen projects where we wanted to do a part — a cap, for example, a fragrance cap — in five pieces, and nobody could find the right solution. But when you start digging, you end up doing it in three. That helps with assembly costs, with tooling, with overall cost. And now all of a sudden you can afford sustainable materials — chemically recycled PCR materials, for example. So you don’t compromise integrity or functionality, you’re fully sustainable, and sometimes you even end up a little cheaper than if you had done the five-piece version without sustainable materials. It’s a whole exercise. It’s case by case. It really has to be one-offs."
Reducing part count and material diversity simplifies end-of-life handling, supply chain complexity, and quality control. Achieving simplicity requires deeper collaboration between design and engineering teams, but the payoff extends across sustainability, cost, and manufacturability.
The Unboxing Experience and Brand Perception
Packaging simplification can also influence how products are perceived at first touch.
In electronics, replacing mixed plastic inserts with a single corrugated cradle creates a cleaner unboxing experience. The structure folds into itself, holding the device securely while presenting a cohesive appearance.
Rather than sorting through multiple materials, the consumer encounters one integrated solution.
Even in industrial categories, the moment of opening reinforces brand values. A thoughtful structure communicates care, precision, and responsibility.
In beauty, similar considerations apply. The tactile feel of a cap, the sound of closure, the weight distribution of a bottle are all elements that shape consumer perception. Sustainable formats have to deliver those sensory cues while meeting environmental objectives.
Building a Reusable Materials Playbook
Evaluating emerging materials requires rigorous testing.
“It takes so much evaluation to decide that a material is up to par,” Ezzeddine said.
Testing needs to consider performance, safety, manufacturability, and long-term reliability. Balancing that evaluation with aggressive time-to-market pressures presents ongoing tension.
Sometimes the decision is whether to hit the market with the material you trust, or risk delaying a launch while a new resin goes through validation.
Those decisions reflect broader business strategies around versioning, risk tolerance, and competitive timing.
Once materials are validated, they become reusable assets.
“Once you have some tried and tested solutions, it becomes a lot easier because now you have this library of solutions that have already proven that they work,” Ezzeddine said.
At ELC, new materials are identified through supplier engagement and competitive surveillance—both inside and outside the beauty category—then routed through centralized materials evaluation and qualification teams. Approved materials become available to brand teams for future programs.
Buzot noted that AI tools now help resurface prior innovations.
“We can now go back into AI and it’s going to screen through the entire corporation network for years’ worth of work and it will come back with that one solution that one engineer created three years ago.”
Without that documentation, hard-won material wins can disappear into email threads and archived project folders. With it, the next team starts ahead instead of starting over.
Supplier Collaboration and Accountability
Supplier partnerships play a critical role in advancing sustainable packaging.
“There are companies that are out there that really want to be partners,” Lanza said, describing suppliers who invest in testing, prototyping, and cost modeling.
Early engagement supports realistic budgeting and feasibility assessment.
At the same time, Buzot cautioned against passive reliance on vendors.
“You cannot just rely on the supplier’s expertise,” he said. “You need to push the envelope at every level to integrate sustainability and also deliver functionality and appeal.”
High-end packaging often requires stretching supplier capabilities beyond standard specifications. Close collaboration combined with clear expectations helps raise the performance bar.
Global Ambition, Regional Execution
Global brands walk a tightrope of aligning far-reaching, often global sustainability targets with regional realities.
“It has to be a marriage of both,” Ezzeddine said, referring to global ambition and local implementation.
Where products are packaged and sold influences sourcing decisions. Procuring corrugated or recycled inputs near final assembly locations reduces transportation emissions and strengthens supply chain resilience.
“Regionalized sourcing is probably the lowest hanging fruit,” Buzot said.
Localized manufacturing reduces carbon footprint and buffers against disruption. Achieving consistent quality across regions requires coordination among procurement, quality assurance, and engineering teams.
Transportation footprint belongs in the same strategic conversation as recyclability and material substitution.
Looking Ahead
Panelists offered parting advice for long-term packaging strategy.
“This is such a rapidly evolving field,” Ezzeddine said, encouraging continuous monitoring of emerging materials and technologies.
“Keep it simple,” Lanza advised, recommending portfolio harmonization while preserving distinctive brand elements.
“Do not think of the packaging as a lesser thing,” Buzot said, emphasizing its influence on purchase and repurchase behavior.
As the conversation wound down, no one pointed to a breakthrough resin waiting in the wings. The focus stayed on when decisions get made and how hard teams are willing to push for simplicity.
For brands navigating regulatory change, cost pressures, and evolving consumer expectations, that discipline provides a practical roadmap forward, panelists agreed.
