At a time when consumers are increasingly demanding sustainability, being able to develop eco-friendly packaging is a huge advantage for all concerned. Louisville, CO-based EcoEnclose, is leading the way in this area.
Working with fellow Colorado-based Living Ink, whose black algae-based inks are catching the eye of the printing and ink industries, EcoEnclose is working with a Who’s Who of top commercial brands, including Adidas and Patagonia, emphasizing sustainability and quality in packaging.
It has been a long journey for EcoEnclose CEO Saloni Doshi, one that dates back to 2005, when she was trying to find packaging options for Thirsties, a sustainable cloth diaper brand. Doshi quickly realized that there weren’t any great eco-friendly packaging options out there.
“This started the search for and ultimately the development of EcoEnclose, where our first product was the recycled poly mailer, now 100% recycled, 50% post-consumer resin, and recyclable,” Doshi said.
“In 2015, my husband and I acquired EcoEnclose after years of searching for a business whose mission aligned with our own,” added Doshi. “We loved the values that EcoEnclose was built upon and saw its tremendous potential for growth. We’ve now expanded into over 200 shipping solutions, almost all of which are 100% recycled and recyclable.”
EcoEnclose’s growth has paralleled Living Ink. In 2013, Scott Fulbright and Steve Albers created Living Ink with a mission to develop algae-based inks that could replace every day printing inks in flexo, offset, and digital printers.
“In their early years of development, their first iteration of algae-based ink actually changed color over time so they created a fun Kickstarter campaign with time-lapse ink pens,” Doshi noted. “From there, they narrowed their focus on commercially viable inks.”
In 2017, Living Ink reached out to EcoEnclose, primarily as a fellow Colorado-based company with a shared passion for sustainable innovation. At that point, Doshi recalled that Living Ink had a screenprinting ink they were using to produce small-batch notecards, and they were eager to find more commercially viable applications of their innovative technology.
“They were eager to test their ink on our custom shipping boxes, and we were excited about the possibility of offering this to our customers, who are equally as passionate about sustainability,” Doshi said. “Our first real projects together were on two printed shipping boxes - Bedrock Sandals and Alluvian.
“In June of this year, we officially partnered with Living Ink to offer Algae Ink to any company looking to print with black ink on paper packaging. From paper mailers to shipping boxes and marketing materials, we’ll be printing black in Algae Ink,” Doshi added.
Doshi observed that there are numerous advantages to using Algae Ink.
“It is by far, the most sustainable ink in existence,” Doshi said. “Today, even the most eco-friendly black inks (water-based and soy-based) use pigments derived from fossil fuels. Algae Ink uses algae cells for pigments, and it actually has a negative carbon footprint. Compared to traditionally used carbon black ink, algae-based ink results in a decrease in carbon dioxide emission by 200%.”
Using a completely new ink technology did bring some challenges to EcoEnclose.
“The biggest challenge was early on when we were still in the R&D phase of using Algae Ink for our packaging,” Doshi said. “When we were in our testing phase, sometimes the ink would foam or bubble. Other times, the coverage or depth of ink color wasn’t quite where it needed to be. And sometimes we would mix our own water-based black ink with Algae Ink in order to achieve a high-quality print.
“Throughout this phase, we were working closely together with Living Ink to refine the algae ink formulation until it was consistent and producing high-quality prints,” she added. “The Living Ink team was an amazing innovation partner throughout the entire process, even working directly on-site with us.”
To date, about 50 companies have collectively printed more than 1 million packages with Algae Ink. Some of these brands include Adidas, 3D Hub, Patagonia, Modern Dane, Rocky Mountain Oils, Bedrock and Alluvian.
These partnerships have been successful. For example, Doshi noted that Rocky Mountain Oils said this of Algae Ink:
“Our next exciting evolution is supporting the use of Algae Ink for printing instead of traditional chemical ink. We’re extremely excited about the idea of eliminating the use of harmful chemicals from printed materials and look forward to incorporating Algae Ink more and more as the technology continues to evolve.”
Printing environmentally friendly packaging isn’t just good for the world; it is also good for business.
“We’ve seen over 100% growth year-over-year with EcoEnclose alone, so the desire for consumers and businesses to be more eco-friendly is on the rise. Additionally, eCommerce is even more necessary due to the pandemic, further contributing to the need for more packaging solutions,” Doshi said. “It’s been inspiring to see more and more businesses still searching for eco-friendly packaging (and eco-friendly practices in general) even in the midst of everything happening in 2020.”
