It seems like in our current environment all the talk is about pollution and other environmental concerns. Everytime you turn on the news it’s something else upsetting as it relates to avoidable environmental harm that continues to occur. It’s easy to zone out these stories and just go on living our day to day lives. These issues however are not solved just by being ignored. These issues are extremely serious matters vital to the future of our planet and our society. They may just come off as future problems for a more urgent time but in reality that time is now. It’s easy to participate in environmentally friendly activities on a personal level such as picking up trash, using less paper, and using reusable goods over plastics. These individual activities go a long way and are helpful but the real difference maker lies in the hands of big corporations and businesses. Big companies have long mastered processes and different ideal production and packaging methods to ensure the most efficient and high quality product is released and offered. One modern aspect that should be taken into account when perfecting this process is the environmental impact. Many of these processes dispel significant amounts of waste and non reusable items like plastic that could potentially harm the environment by ending up in the oceans or inside of an animal’s stomach. That’s why it’s important for companies to take proactive steps towards environmentally friendly production methods. Large companies have massive production facilities and quantities of products so if a company turns towards a more eco-friendly method of packaging it could greatly help with decreasing pollution. It’s especially important to adopt more environmentally friendly methods now as the population continues to grow and grow, leading to higher overall consumption in the future. With ever increasing demands for products and goods it could make it harder to switch to environmentally friendly packaging at a future date in turn creating a self harming cycle. Another benefit is that switching to a more environmentally friendly packaging system could be a good boost to the reputation of a company as it represents a more modern philosophy and getting in front of the competition. It could also help create more of a specific niche out of the consumer base by creating more of an identity for a brand or company. By becoming more environmentally friendly the company could become more aligned with the current trends and with where the public positivity lies. This would in turn help with sales, reputation, and marketing. Having the reputation of an extremely modern and eco-friendly company could also help bring in those people who are interested in supporting the ideology and supporting the mission. The switch may be costly and not extremely appealing in the present which could turn off some businesses, however in the future, a switch to more safe eco-friendly packaging would greatly help a company with brand, sales, and marketing as well as helping to reduce pollution and destruction of the environment for the now and the future.
Essay by: Elijah Allen
Corona del Sol – Arizona State University
