Reduce your packaging

A free web-based seminar aims to help designers reduce the amount of packaging they use.

Sustainable business expert, Envirowise, is urging businesses to find out how tackling the issue of over-packaging can save them money by signing up for the free online ‘webinar’ early next year.

Taking place on 25 February 2009, the webinar is aimed at product and packaging designers to help them deal with rising material costs and increasing pressure to improve their environmental credentials.

Jenni Rosser, eco-design specialist at Envirowise, said: 'It is estimated that some 80 per cent of the cost of a product and its packaging is set at the design stage, so the benefits of thinking about resource efficiency from the outset can be a win-win situation for both the environment and the bottom line.'

Webinar participants can take part in a virtual seminar covering practical elements of eco-design including redesign exercises, comments from key stakeholders in the design industry and a live redesign activity decided on the day by participants.

Mark Tosey, director at design agency Brightgreen, took part in the last Envirowise eco-design webinar in October.

He said: 'The webinar was a very useful and engaging tool to communicate some of the issues around sustainable design.

'All too often seminars tend to deliver in very general terms, whereas the webinar provided visual stimulus plus live discussion and debate.'

For more information on the Envirowise eco-design webinars or to book your place, visit: www.envirowise.gov.uk/webinar or call the Envirowise Advice Line: 0800 585 794.