For years now, sustainability in beauty packaging has been treated like a design language.
Brown paper, soft greens, recycled cues told consumers a brand cared. The work was visual, not structural — symbolic rather than systemic. That era is over.

Today, sustainability has matured into an operational discipline. It’s not as much about how packaging looks sustainable, but how it functions sustainably — across sourcing, converting, distribution, and recovery. The new mandate is systems thinking: less symbolism, more science.

A decade ago, the goal was to make eco-friendly packaging signal something different visually. Now, brands are learning that the most sustainable packaging often looks ordinary. The true work happens in weight reduction, mono-material design, supply-chain efficiency, and lifecycle modeling.

Re-engineering the Substrate Hierarchy 

The smartest converters aren’t chasing trends — they’re re-engineering the substrate hierarchy itself. Paperboard, glass, and resins aren’t just materials anymore; they’re data points in a sustainability equation. This means a package doesn’t need a “raw” look to feel responsible — the aesthetic that once signaled “expensive but sustainable” in beauty.

Sustainability once stopped at, Is it recyclable? Now the question is, How does it behave through its entire lifecycle? From raw material sourcing to consumer use to recovery, packaging is being judged by its footprint, not its finish. Lighter weights reduce emissions in transit. Refills replace redundancy. Thoughtful closures prevent contamination in recycling streams.

In beauty — where sensory and aesthetic detail have always ruled — this is a profound shift. The new luxury isn’t excess; it’s efficiency. It’s also about leveraging the aesthetic of beauty to create meaning in the science of sustainability. Rhode’s packaging uses neutral greys, beiges, and very clean typography — reflecting the ‘clean girl / skinimalism’ trend. The restrained packaging supports its strategic positioning with fewer SKUs, clarity of brand purpose, and a strong visual identity.

True sustainability can’t be achieved in silos. What once was a sign-off at the end of a design brief — “make this look sustainable” — now drives the project. It is the overt order of the brief: this package must be sustainable. Converters, material scientists, and operational leaders must collaborate before the first dieline is drawn. Front-loading intelligence early in the process saves time, material, and costs, later.

As one operations leader recently told me, “Every conversation about sustainability is really a conversation about alignment.” She’s right. The more connected the teams, the smaller the footprint. This is no longer a baton handoff — it’s an integrated, interwoven effort to create a beautiful, sustainable end-product that the consumer will enjoy and reuse over and over.

Sustainability Is No Longer a Promise 

The beauty industry loves a promise, but sustainability is no longer a promise — it’s a proof point. Brands are being asked to publish carbon data, PCR percentages, and recovery rates; tangible evidence of intent turned into practice. But metrics alone don’t make a system work.
Data without design direction still creates waste — and is dead to the eye.

The opportunity is to use measurement as a map, not a badge or an award. Numbers should guide smart trade-offs between recyclability and cost, weight and strength, aesthetic and performance.

While the industry has evolved, consumer perception has yet to catch up. Many consumers still equate “sustainable” with “looks recycled” — the brown glass, the paper wrap, the string tie. But the truth is more nuanced. A thin-walled plastic tube might have a lower total impact than a heavy glass jar once logistics, breakage, and recyclability are factored in. Skincare line The Ordinary’s packaging is extremely minimal, using a simple black font on a white base, which provides a very sophisticated, though medicinal, takeaway.   

It’s time for brands to educate consumers gently but firmly; sustainability isn’t a look, it’s a logic.
The brands that lead this education — first and well — will earn loyalty.

Sustainability in packaging is no longer a brand value; it’s a business imperative. The companies that win won’t be those shouting the loudest, but those quietly redesigning the system from within — embedding sustainability so deeply that it stops needing to be called out at all. And those who teach their consumers what true sustainability means — and how they benefit from it — will create the most meaningful form of loyalty — belief.

When sustainability becomes standard practice rather than marketing language, that’s not progress, that’s maturity.

About the Author

Ms. Elenita (Elle) Morris is a recognized consumer packaged goods brand design thought-leader with particular expertise in beauty, haircare and skincare. She speaks frequently at beauty conferences on the changing beauty consumer landscape and how brands are evolving their offerings to appeal to this new constituency.  Follow Elle Morris on LinkedIn.

Photo: Shutterstock/ Chursina Viktoriia