The Sustainable Innovation in Design Award recognizes an innovation in product, equipment, or process design that enables a sustainable improvement. These improvements could appeal to recyclability, anti-litter, compostability, raw material efficiencies, or new product design.

Innovations in design of products can influence sustainable characteristics such as recyclability, compostability, durability, flexibility, ease of transportation, and more. Adjustments in design can make the difference between a product ending up in landfill or getting a second life.

Innovations in equipment and process of manufacturing have the potential to impact the type and amount of energy, water, or material used, volume of emissions released, and overall decrease of environmental footprint. These advances become the backbone of sustainable manufacturing operations.  

2022 Sustainable Innovation in Design Award Winner: Klockner Pentaplast - kpNext™ R1  

kpNext™ R1 is the first of its kind, pharmaceutical blister film designed to be recycled in the RIC 1 recycling stream. Typically, pharmaceutical blister films are produced from materials that are not readily recycled. They are usually produced from vinyl or combinations of polymers constituting a #7 RIC number (other) and are subsequently landfilled or incinerated. kpNext™ R1 is produced from a special PET formulation that allows it to be fully recycled directly with other #1 PET products such as water bottles. This is the first pharmaceutical blister film designed in such a way as to be completely recycled with other PET consumer products.

2021 Sustainable Innovation in Design Award Winner: Packamama (previously Garçon Wines) - eco flat wine bottles made completely from recycled PET

Packamama's eco, flat wine bottles are an innovation that is respectful of the wine industry's heritage and a packaging industry benchmark of shape innovation, best-in-class material and recyclability by design. The design is respectfully inspired by the round, glass wine bottle but is uniquely flat to save space and made entirely from recycled PET, pre-existing not single-use plastic, to save weight and energy. The product became known for enabling delivery of a full-sized bottle of wine through an average letterbox in the UK. Today their sustainable flat bottles are being positioned as a serious challenger to round, glass wine bottles.

2020 Sustainable Innovation in Design and People's Choice Award Winner: Accredo Packaging - AccredoFlex® RP™ Gen2 pouch

The AccredoFlex® RP™ Gen2 pouch is a revolutionary new film technology that allows for fully-recyclable stand-up pouches with enhanced features. This new product offering provides substantially improved characteristics over existing competitive pouches including optical properties, strength, gloss, and tear. Additionally, the improved temperature resistance of this proprietary film technology can allow customers to run fully-recyclable pouches where competitive offerings have been unsuccessful. By enhancing the properties of an all-PE pouch, we allow customers to convert from non-recyclable structures to a Sustainable Packaging Coalition approved format.

2019 Sustainable Innovation in Design Award Winner: Tarkett - ethos® Modular Carpet Tile with Omnicoat Technology

Utilizing a previously untapped waste stream, Tarkett developed ethos®, a high-performance polymer (PVB), recycled from disposed windshields and safety glass. ethos® Modular Tile is Cradle to Cradle Certified Silver (v3) and the first American modular carpet tile to achieve this level of certification and an alternate to PVC soft surface products. With the innovation of Omnicoat Technology added to ethos®, Tarkett offers a modular tile that virtually eliminates the possibility of installation problems before they ever happen.

2019 People's Choice Award Winner: iMFLUX - Green Curve

iMFLUX has created a new method of controlling the injection molding process that utilizes low, constant pressure measured directly at the machine’s nozzle. This type of processing has proven to provide benefits in dimensional capability, cycle time reduction, and part weight reduction. iMFLUX has recently coupled this process with their proprietary auto-viscosity adjust (AVA) technology. This technology recognizes any change in material viscosity and automatically modifies the driving pressure while maintaining identical flow rates through the mold filling and packing phases. Adjustments are instantaneous and require no operator interactions.