Green by design

Almost 1,200 industry professionals attended the fifth Perfumes, Cosmetics and Design (PCD) exhibition, which took place at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, in Paris, on the 3-4 February.

Delegates representing international brands were attracted by both an array of exhibiting suppliers showcasing new packaging products, which ranged from glass bottles and cartons to pumps and plastics jars, and by the event’s core theme of sustainable development and the environment.

To highlight the level of technical progress on show this year, several products received PCD Awards for innovation. Winners included the Culture Bio range of skin care products by Yves Rocher, which picked up a special distinction prize in the environmentally compatible cosmetics packaging category, and Magnifique by Lancôme, which claimed the Women’s Perfume PCD Award.

A series of lectures ran alongside the exhibition, and over the two days they concentrated on raising awareness of the complexity of sustainable development.

However, rather than focus on the negatives, Alain Béthune, packaging research director at L’Oréal, set a positive tone in his opening address by saying: “Far from acting as a brake on innovation, environmental issues constitute an asset for enterprises, as they stimulate competitiveness and point to new avenues for packaging development.”

From then on a succession of speakers, from the likes of Price Waterhouse Coopers, Henkel of America, Unilever, Valois and Cosmogen, covered of variety of subjects that included everything from how to use eco-design to roll out a sustainable development strategy, the biodegradability of plastics components, and technological progress in colorants and additives, to perfume packaging, regulatory constraints, intellectual property, environmental labelling and how to be self-sufficient in terms of thermal and electrical energy.

The next PCD congress takes place 26-27 January 2010, again in Paris. Sustainable packaging will again be the core theme, but this time there will be a focus on multi sensory packaging and active packaging, and customisation.