People read more packaging than they read books...
... and the consumers have the right to understand it.
by Stefano Lavorini
«…do well what was previously done less well and do for the first time what was initially overlooked»*
Roberto Calasso, L’impronta dell’editore, Adelphi 2013
Everything starts off again from Interpack, nothing more obvious and inevitable.
This is indeed the right opportunity for reviewing what has been done, what will occur in the future, and not only from a technological point of view.
An important occasion that for us of ItaliaImballaggio that has meant the presentation - in a nutshell - of a new project that opens towards the world of consumers and that accompanies us up to EXPO 2015.
We have been writing about packaging for sector operators for two decades, but we have never ceased to envision ever better packaging… for everyone. And in particular, for us consumers who everyday make our purchasing choices, trying to pick our way through a highly heterogeneous offer, in our heart of hearts hoping and expecting to find products/packaging that is “good” for our needs, but also “good” for society and the surrounding environment.
This is why we have decided to promote an “ETHICAL PACKAGING CHARTER” that, in respect of the entire packaging supply chain, from materials producers to users to largescale retail, may be a tool to help an evermore informed and aware consumer, who is mindful of innovation, service and the environment.
A far-reaching project that involves the Design Department of the Milan Polytechnic, in the persons of Giovanni Baule and Valeria Bucchetti, who we have entrusted with the task of drawing up the “Charter”, a process in which, in the various ways possible, sector associations, institutions, designers and single companies have been actively invited to take part.
To reach beyond, ideas, new ways of doing things, new opportunities are needed, that aim in the direction of a qualitative development.
We have made the first moves, convinced that you cannot avoid facing up to a changing reality, a reality that has changed, and that the worse mistake that people involved in packaging could make would be to suffer the changes rather than bring them about.
We need the contribution of the experience and the ideas of everyone in order to devise a new common language (a shared vocabulary) that enables us to conjugate our reciprocal needs: the practical/applicative ones of packaging producers and users (brand owners), with the aspects associated with the culture of the project and emerging consumer models featuring sobriety, essentiality and simplicity.
Stimulating a reflection is always a difficult undertaking, especially today, immersed as we are in a communicative flow that, in terms of excess and superabundance, is often seen as an inevitable background noise.
In the babel of lost stimuli, we have highlighted that Italian consumers in general recognize that packaging has a functionality and a necessity that makes it a fundamental part of the selfsame product. And it is for this reason that we cannot fall short of committing ourselves – all of us – to supporting packaging as a tool of civil behaviour and honestly counter the hostility, the prejudices it is subject to due to ignorance and bad faith.
But rather than point our finger at what others are saying or withholding, we are intent on playing our part. So let’s go for it and give it a try.
To stay updated register on our website, on the page
http://dativoweb.net/cartapackagingconsapevole/
http://dativoweb.net/mindfulpackagingcharter/
