UnBoxed

How Data and Sustainability are Changing the Game

In this episode of UnBoxed, host Deb Menter sits down with David Murgio, Chief Sustainability Officer at Ranpak, and Justin Laurenzi, Senior Director of Product Management at Pitney Bowes, to discuss the future of sustainable packaging and shipping, regulatory compliance, and data-driven shipping solutions. 

Listen as we dive into emerging trends, including biodegradable materials and automation, which are reshaping the way companies optimize shipping. Hear how data insights are helping businesses reduce waste, comply with regulations, and enhance customer satisfaction as well as how the shifts toward dimensional pricing and government regulations on packaging waste are impacting shippers.

Key Takeaways:

• Simple, cost-effective ways to start sustainable packaging adoption
• How data, multicarrier shipping technology, and analytics can improve efficiency and compliance
• The role of automation in sustainable packaging
• The impact of dimensional weight on shipping costs
• Why effective packaging is essential for reducing waste

Guest speaker: David Murgio, Chief Sustainability Officer, Ranpak
David is currently an SVP and the Chief Sustainability Officer at Ranpak. He joined Ranpak in October 2019. In this role, David is responsible for Ranpak’s global sustainability strategy and reporting; including Ranpak’s sustainability-related marketing, sales and product development efforts; its internal and operational sustainability initiatives; and its annual Sustainability Impact Report and sustainability-related regulatory disclosure. David also serves as the General Counsel of One Madison Group, LLC, where he helped negotiate and close One Madison’s acquisition of Ranpak.

Previously, David served as Investment Counsel at Harbinger Capital Partners and Counsel in the corporate department of the law firm, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. He completed his undergraduate education at Dartmouth College and has a master’s degree from the School of International & Public Affairs at Columbia University, as well as a law degree from Columbia University School of Law.

Guest Speaker: Justin Laurenzi, Sr. Dir. Product Management, Pitney Bowes
Justin Laurenzi leads product development for the Pitney Bowes SendTech SaaS multicarrier platform and portfolio. He is responsible for delivering technology solutions, including the innovative Shipping 360 SaaS platform, that reduce complexities in shipping and mailing for office, ecommerce, retail and high-volume shippers.​

Host: Deb Menter, Pitney Bowes
Deb is on the Client Lifecycle Team at Pitney Bowes, where she helps clients navigate complex rate changes, mailing system migrations, and greater shipping savings and value. You’ll also find her moderating Pitney Bowes webinars, where she addresses common client concerns and provides actionable solutions.

The material, opinions, and information presented in the podcast are for general information purposes only and is not professional advice. Listeners should consult appropriate professionals for specific advice tailored to your situation. The podcast and its content is provided as-is and any use is at the listener’s own risk. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests or hosts are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of any company.

The material, opinions, and information presented in the podcast are for general information purposes only and is not professional advice. Listeners should consult appropriate professionals for specific advice tailored to your situation. The podcast and its content is provided as-is and any use is at the listener’s own risk. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests or hosts are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of any company.

Deb Menter
Hi everyone and welcome to UnBoxed, presented by Pitney Bowes, your source for all things shipping. I'm your host, Deb Menter, and I'm super excited to be joined today by David Murgio, Chief Sustainability Officer at Ranpak, and Justin Laurenzi, Senior Director of Product Management at Pitney Bowes.

Thank you both for being with me today. This is really exciting. Thanks. Wonderful to be here. Let's dive right in. And I'm going to start with an easy question for you. So, David, I'm going to start with you. Can you talk a little bit about your journey to your current role and what your background is in packaging and sustainability?

David Murgio
Absolutely. So I actually was trained as a lawyer. I served as a lawyer. I've worked as a lawyer for a number of years in ah in a large law firm doing... corporate transactions and corporate stuff.

And at some point, about five, six years ago, when a company that an investment company that I was working as a lawyer for, we acquired and brought Ranpak public.

And a bunch of us started to ah take positions within Ranpak and the CEO, Omar Osley, asked if I wanted to be chief sustainability officer as he knew I was super interested in sustainability. And I said, absolutely. And it was a wonderful, wonderful choice. a terrific career change and it's been a lot of fun since then.

Deb Menter
Great. I love it. Justin, can you also share a bit about your background and your current role at Pitney Bowes?

Justin Laurenzi
Sure. So I've spent about 20 years within the but your logistics and transportation space.

So I started out my professional career in doing more like LTL truckload moves, moved into like operations related roles. So how do you package stuff? How does that stuff move on? And then I moved over to a parcel carrier where I spent a large portion portion of my time actually building shipping technology to make the process easier.

As it relates to that, what always started to emerge, right, was the shift from probably brick and mortar side fulfillment to more parcels. Like how does e-commerce start to shift? How does all of that stuff change, impact the way that consumables are being delivered to end users, which is really the the rise of e-commerce really is what we're getting to and how that actually changes the entire packaging flow.

So fast forward work for domestic retailers and now I actually build multi-carrier shipping technology, which our job is to how do we effectively make the multi-carrier transportation easier and effectively get packages from a to B in the most seamless way possible.

Deb Menter
With both of your really different backgrounds and how you ended up in these positions, I think it's going to be ah really great conversation for all all of our listeners today. Um, so David, back over to you, can you tell us a little bit about what Ranpak does its mission and how, um, how you work with different types of clients?

David Murgio
Absolutely. So Ranpak although, as I mentioned before, we've we've been a public company only for a couple of years. Ranpak's actually been around for a very long time. Ranpak was founded in the was organized initially in the early seventy s And the interesting thing about Ranpak is we were always focused on secondary packaging, that is protecting products for shipment. um But more importantly, since the very, very beginning, we were always focused on using paper as ah protective packaging substrate. That is no plastics, no foams, no chemicals, no nothing.

And as a result, we come to the we come to the table today with 50 plus years of experience working with paper as a secondary packaging substrate. We've been doing it our entire lives, 50 plus years.

And I like to say that as a result, in a sense, the kind of sustainability movement came to us. We were kind of sustainable before it was hip to be sustainable, but it was just an interesting, quirky idea that somebody had.

And it's really been exciting to see the e-commerce world and um the focus on sustainability shift towards what we've been doing for a whole long time.

Deb Menter
Can you talk about how sustainability ah has taken any kind of role or focus and in what we're doing at Pitney Bowes?

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah. So yes, we're kind of probably the unsexy side of the shipping process, right? However, it's extremely important to really lead with that and what data and analytics provides, right? So if we know that you have an increased damage rate because of what's going on, what are your options? What's on the table to help? I mean, a lot of the two major carriers, FedEx UPS provide things like package engineering.

So how can we a get you the data where are your damage is happening? But more importantly, how do you consolidate orders? How do you package this in better ways? So if everything's going from the same origins to the same destination, why are you producing two boxes?

More importantly, why are using oversized boxes? So this is really starting to emerge in the industry and really what's going on. So part of what we do is we help you calculate your dimensions across all carriers, which becomes complicated because every carrier does dimensional weight differently.

Every parcels could be split, could be combined. All of that stuff helps you save on your transportation costs at the end of the day. So while it's the tail end of it, it's also the way that you capture most of your cogs and what step occurs.

Deb Menter
Yeah, it's really interesting, I think, to as we think about um everything that happens. Once the product is made, then it has to get shipped. And what does that whole process look like on the tail end?

And how can that whole process become more sustainable in these small ways? So let's dig into the sustainability conversation because that's what we're here to really talk about today.

And so, David, I'm actually going to ask you what your definition of sustainability really is.

David Murgio
It's a great question. At the end of the day, when I think about sustainability and when I'm talking to customers and end users of Ranpak products, the way I like to think about it, and frankly, even my kids, the way I like to think about it, it's actually quite simple concepts.

The idea is simply, how do we conduct ourselves today in the way that has the least adverse effect on life tomorrow? In other words, what can we do today to make our children's lives better tomorrow?

And when we put it in that context, a lot of the, you know, a lot of the debate kind of goes out the window because everybody loves their children. Everybody wants to make life better for their children.

And it's all about making choices and where we can we can make choices today that just make life a little bit better for for for our children. So at Ranpak, one of the things that I like to think about what we do every day and one of the things that kind of puts a bounce at my step when I'm going to work is this idea that we're really working hard and everything that we do is a step forward in reducing single-use plastic. So when I think about shifting to paper and shifting to other more recyclable and biodegradable substrates for packaging, it's really just about creating less stuff for our kids and grandchildren to have to manage and deal with.

And that to me is the key to to to to everything that we're that we're working on. And same with Justin and thinking about, you know, it making making palletization more efficient so you have less shipments. It's different stuff, but it's the same idea about creating an environment that's just a little bit better for our kids.

Deb Menter
Yeah, for sure. um Justin, youre do you have a similar feeling?

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I mean, the whole human approach is real and something we live and breathe every single time.

I would like to add it's it is the packaging, but it starts with how the packaging and everything is sourced. And I think, yes, paper obviously does that, but it's it's the entire lifecycle. So once consumer recipients get the package, how easy is it to dispose it? We just mentioned some of the stuff in landfills that's going on, but we got to think not just the packing material, but from lifecycle management of sourcing to actually distribution and disposal of the of the production of whatever we're going to use.

So to me, it's it has to. And I think the adoption and utilization of everything we're talking about really has to be environmental environmentally friendly and commercially viable. And if we can climb something you make it work, all of this becomes a reality.

And think most people would agree if it's sustainable and we can make a better world for you know the future, most people are going to buy into this. But I love the human approach as we start to define sustainability.

Deb Menter
Yeah. Hundred percent. And I love I love those two things you just pulled out, that it's environmentally friendly and commercially available, because I think so many of us would love to be more environmentally friendly, but not everything is commercially available or cost efficient, cost effective for us, which I know we're going to get into that conversation a little bit later.

But first, you know, one of the things that is also emerging at the same time as sustainability is automation. Everyone's starting to use automation. So David, can you talk a little bit about the role of automation enhancing the sustainability of packaging from the packing to the filling to you know the sourcing, and all of that whole life cycle that Justin was just referring to?

David Murgio
Absolutely happy to. So at Ranpak, as I said, for 50 years, we've been working on these the paper packaging for in the box. But more recently, in the last five to seven, 10 years, maybe, we've really expanded in automation.

And our automation offerings are about large pieces of capital equipment that can either size boxes appropriately, measure the, you know, sense the size of the product and reduce the height of the box appropriately to fit the product.

Or other machines will sense the void in the box and make sure that the proper amount of dunnage is dispensed into the box. And the way I think about them and those applications and and and the the the sustainability benefits and the in the leap that the the step change sustainability, it's really all about being more efficient, right?

Sustainability, the best way to be most sustainable is to not use stuff that you don't need to use, right? And, you know, that's more sustainable than anything. If you can use less stuff, that's the way to be the most sustainable, right?

So our automation products are all about that. They're all about making sure that the proper amount sensing and using computer vision and, you know, and sensors to sense the amount of the size of the box, the void in the box and make sure that only the right amount of dunnage is inserted.

So it's using less dunnage. And then our other large, our flagship automation product, is a machine. It's a very large machine that the the product goes in one end, and the sensors measure the size of the product, and it cuts down the box to be to to meet the product. So Justin's talking about shipping empty boxes, agree 100%.

And that's also about using less stuff. That's about having smaller DIM weights, which has a financial benefit. It's about putting more packages on a pallet. So we're using fewer trucks to ship the same number ah products.

So to me, the great sustainability step ah step change or step forward with our automation products is really about maximizing efficiency, which ultimately is the way you can be most sustainable using less stuff.

If that makes sense.

Deb Menter
No, absolutely it does. And I think, yeah, absolutely. It leads right into that conversation that Pitney Bowes, you know, we're so focused on in terms of rating and cost effectiveness and how do you reduce all of those costs?

And by fitting more packages on a pallet, you're reducing your carbon footprint and any of those things, like all those little steps that are um contributing to to sustainability and just becoming more environmentally friendly.

So, I mean, I know I mentioned it a little bit, but Justin, you probably have a much better ah much better thought process on how that affects all of the shipments and DIMM reading and all of that.

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah. so I mean, I think we're, to me, dimensional rating is kind of the wave of the future, right? And back up 10 years ago, the carriers introduced dimensional rating before it was really seen as like a cool thing, right? In terms of sustainability.

And really what they were getting at is capacity was filling up faster because people were just throwing in tons and tons of box sizes. For right or wrong, I think there was a lot of reasons why everybody just kind of said, oh, the carriers or just want to hit us with additional charges. And while, yes, part of that could be seen as true, they're really trying to figure out how do they maximize truck space that David just mentioned. And it's real, right?

So if they if the trucks are full, the result is they have to buy more trucks, put more trucks on the road. All of that stuff is kind of the butterfly effect of not packaging things properly. To me, it's all closely correlated. So what you've really seen is carriers push for more dimensional charges started out about 166 continues to drop down for the vast majority of your shipments. But those dimensional modifiers will be here and probably more seen in the future than we've ever really experienced where if you're shipping really lightweight items, it just has to be accounted for.

Like heavy dense items are easy to pack they're easy to kind of move around and low damage rates these lighter things with boxes all sorts of things start to occur and I mean that's the importance of the packaging right is how can you get it from A to B without damaging the contents of the package hence everything that goes along with it so that's dimensioning there, but also the the packing material that gets you from A to B is all included.

David Murgio
I would add that I'm right there lockstep, arm in arm with everything Justin's saying, because when I look at it from a sustainability perspective, the least sustainable thing, the least sustainable way to ship something is to ship it in a way that it breaks, because then it's going to ship back and ship back and ship back. So a lot of people ask, you know, can paper, you know, paper is more sustainable? Can our sustainable solutions, you know, will they still protect packaging? And and I'll tell you our perspective at Ranpak, that is first and foremost. If it doesn't protect, it's useless. It can be the most sustainable thing in the world.

If it doesn't protect, it has no it has no value because the least sustainable thing to do is to reship the same product three, four times because it's broken. So we're very, very focused with our package engineers and with our partners like Justin on making sure that all of our packaging material, while it's sustainable, first and foremost, it's effective and it works because if it doesn't work, it's you're defeating the entire purpose.

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah, I think that's awesome. Yeah, and that's why I keep going back right now. It's how started, right? So e-commerce emerged and then everybody found cheap and easy ways to truly ship. And it was these styrofoam peanuts and things that started to emerge because the whole packaging thing was set to put up on a retail footprint.

Like the packaging was set for that one thing. And then it starts to emerge. It's like, oh, wow, this whole e-commerce thing is taking up. Let's just continue to throw it in boxes. Fast forward, you know, 15 years and it's fundamentally different from where we started, not only from a carrier pricing, but the way in which we unbox our items and from a consumer recipient. How do you dispose of the items is equally as important for many of us. So.

David Murgio
Yeah. And the disposal is to me the one of the the the great advantages of papers, because if there's a municipal recycling, infrastructure where you live. It takes paper. So this whole question of plastic films, is it recyclable? Is it not recyclable? Frankly, goes out the window and it's not relevant to a conversation about paper. So all of our product is 100% paper. To you and to me and my mother, it's all a paper bag. It's brown craft paper.

And it can just go right into that municipal infrastructure and and appropriately dealt with which which to me is one of the great demands and We need to be creating systems that allow for consumers to easily do the right thing.

Deb Menter
Yeah. I think we were talking about this when we spoke earlier. I ordered from a company where all of their products are sustainable and all of their packaging is sustainable as well. And I've ordered glass jars of tomato sauce and other things from them. And I'm so impressed by the quality of how things are packed and the box itself, because I get things from other companies that are broken or torn or whatnot. And I'm always so impressed because I've never had an issue and I've been ordering for them for years. And that I can just package it up, let my cats play in it for a bit, and then I can recycle it.

And I love that I can just put it all in there. So I completely agree with you. So now on to one of those questions, not such a fun topic to talk about, but super, super important and relevant.

What kind of regulations and policies do you foresee driving the shift towards sustainability and how are they impacting the industry?

David Murgio
I think I kind of have a leg up here because we're global organization, so we have about 45 percent of our operations are in Europe. And Europe little further along.

So we're dealing with a lot of the realities that we see around the corner coming in the U.S. already in Europe. And the big the big the big mechanism right now that we see is what's called EPR, extended producer responsibility.

And these are kind of, frankly, highly complex, pretty complex regulatory schemes that effectively the the upshot of them are that they seek to impose a fee that's what we call eco-modulated, which means that it's a higher fee for some packaging substrates that are less recycled, actually, and a lower fee for substrates that are more recycled, actually. So if you're shipping into an area And in that state, there's, you know, 70 percent of a substrate is actually recycled.

Then it'd be a much lower fee as opposed to if you were shipping and using as a packaging substrate for which 5 percent is actually recycled. You'd be charged a higher fee. And the goal of these systems are to both incentivize producers and shippers and e-commerce players to use packaging substrates that are more recycled. In actuality both do that and to raise money to augment the recyclability and the recycling infrastructure around less recycled substrates. So we see this happening a lot in Europe. Europe is further along than we are now and we're already starting to see our customers pay fees in Europe.

In the U.S., Some of these systems, these EPR schemes have been adopted, most notably in California. Recently, I think only a month or two ago, the most recent one was Minnesota. New Jersey passed something similar, but there's about six or seven states in the U.S. that have adopted these schemes, but none of them have actually come into force yet.

So there's a lot of waiting to see exactly how these fees are going to be calculated and what it's going to mean, because it takes four or five years to set up this whole regulatory scheme. If California, New York, a handful of states, a handful of big states do it, it'll be as good as national.

I'm interested, Justin, your perspective, because you're a lot closer in some ways to parts of this than I am.

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything you just said. I think to me, the big caveat is I think over the past 10 years, right, we've seen the probably ethical side pick up and it was like, oh, the ethic to do the right thing the right way was there. But now it's the government's and legal's action starting to really come into play that's forcing the hand for right or wrong. I think it's there.

We are starting to see back to the dimensional charges, right, as a real problem. These things flowing through networks, carriers aren't optimized for the amount of volume coming through. Massive waste just, you know, from a carbon footprint stance on just wasted space because people want to just use standard boxes and pack one item in there and ship it. And it's, you know, 75% empty. Right. It is a big problem in just a horrible way. So we're seeing massive charges on dimensional pricing, kind of everything we're talking about back to the point of why, why is the packaging there? But now how is not only the pricing coming in, but now government penalties coming in for improper packing and yeah misuse of box sizes.

David Murgio
Yeah i mean, in in the EU, there's an EU packaging directive that think they settled on 50 percent void. I think that's in place in couple years.

Justin Laurenzi
New Jersey.

David Murgio
And New Jersey is similar. Right. They just passed that recently. Super interesting concept. The idea that you penalize people for I mean, I think it's appropriate. Don't get me wrong. But I mean, it's interesting.

The notion of penalizing shippers for having more than 50% void in their box, it is all about moving in the right direction. And so to me, that the hard part in the U.S. is the fact that this is all happening at state level.

So kind of national players are going to my guess, kind of pick the most rigorous set of standards and generally try to meet those because everybody's going to have different standards. Obviously, if you're regional, I mean, everybody's going to look at their footprint and see where they're shipping to as they as they decide how to how to manage their compliance.

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah, that's a good point. They don't want to spend a lot of time trying to comply with local laws unless that's something like, they just say like alcohol shipping is very different because then you need to understand, well, can I even sell any state? But that's honestly how you make the money, not how do you streamline the operations. and Now we're talking about streamlining the operations, which is all around the standardization.

So they're not going to pay attention to each individual state's operational laws. They'll do two to three, as you just mentioned, and then that's now our blanket statement for everyone. So right New Jersey picks it up, maybe California and one or two others.

Operations will standardize and now it's an intact for every single state. Right.

Deb Menter
It's so interesting because i feel like, when things like this come into play, like you were talking about, people have to really transition what their business is doing. And so there's always innovation around how do I do it better? And so that really brings us to some of the other emerging trends that might be coming. What are some of the emerging trends that we're seeing um in the pack on this is in sustainable packaging?

David Murgio
Sure, we're so so we're seeing all sorts of things. We're exploring different substrates, different natural substrates, grass paper, increasing recycled content, super interesting. And we're looking at robotics. I'm getting to one that I really wanna talk about because it's related to what we just talked about.

So when I go through the other ones, we're looking at, you know we're releasing a grass paper in Europe that's ah that's got grass content as opposed to purely wood content paper.

We're focused on increasing the recycled content of our papers and figuring out how to use recycled paper for additional applications. We're doing a lot in robotics and palletization, depalletization, the automation and automating the process. But to me, the most exciting thing that I'm seeing right now that we're working on, and that I just think is amazing, is this this data collection and the the the ability to collect and use data.

So we have a product that is super exciting. It works primarily, I mean, it was designed to work with our automation equipment. We call it the Decision Tower. what It's this piece of hardware. It's very simple to use machine vision couple different kinds of vision to scan inside boxes, take photos inside boxes, determine the amount of void. It can take, collect all sorts of data on a box by box basis for a huge volume person talking millions of boxes, right?

And what's so exciting to me about that is we talk about like compliance, right? I mean, there's there's a million uses for that data and a million ways to think about that data.

And I mean, we were joking before we came on I'm not good at technology. I'm not the one who can come up with those million uses, but the fact that we're collecting all this data and and we'll be in a position to kind of put it out there and let people and our people figure out how to best maximize that data. you know. It's like a thousand a thousand blossoms in a field and just see what comes up.

That's what's super exciting to me. And we talk about compliance, we talk about all the stuff that Justin's talking about and managing that. And it's this kind of high data collection for high volume users.

And I think it's going to result in something that looks so different. We're going have such a different perspective five, seven years from now, 10 years from now because of all of this data that we're collecting and really understanding it.

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah, no, I love that concept. I mean, we get there all the time, right? It's, oh, can you print a packing slip? Well, yeah, we can print the packing slip. And then they're expecting five items in a box and really weren't fulfilled. So you buy from every major retailer, your real scenario from all of us, right? It's only got four or five items I purchased. Do you have any proof that something was packaged? Well, yeah, with this technology, it's absolutely there.

From a regulatory and compliance stance, I mean, international shipping always comes to mind here, right? How do I ensure that I'm packing the right thing so when it hits customs, I'm charged accurate duties and taxes? The only way to do that is truly through visualization of the images. So I can truly provide. You don't have to open all of my packages. I can provide that real time.

So to me, it it starts to kind of evolve to your point on like, how do we and we just start to do everything a little bit better with technology? And it's like it all starts here.

Deb Menter
Right. Yeah. Like you can take those analytics one step further and talk about, in cost efficiencies and where you're shipping from and what you're shipping and how it's, how it's being shipped and looking at all of those analytics for that, again, that same life cycle, once it goes in the box, how can, how can we streamline it, everything and make it better and spend less, be more efficient, be more effective. And, I think data gets a really, you know, it's an unsexy thing to talk about, but it's so fascinating. And it's so it's so interesting.

David Murgio
The interesting thing about data and analytics is that you create an environment in which you can you can collect this data and then you show it to everybody around your organization.

And everybody's got this great idea. you know compliance is, oh, my God, this is going to help me comply with my void my void dimension requirements. But just as you say, oh, my God, this is going to make it, you know, legal customs is to say, oh, my God, this is going to make it so I can I can get my stuff through customs. And it's almost like that's why I say like it's really like a thousand blossoms blooming because you don't even know what's going to bloom until you start kicking around this data set amongst everybody in the organization. And everybody says, oh my God, this is going to make it so much easier for me to do X. And I might not even know what X is as I sit here today. Didn't even know there was somebody doing X. You know what I mean?

Justin Laurenzi
I would like to challenge one thing. Data is sexy, in my opinion.

David Murgio
There's nothing unsexy about data.

Justin Laurenzi
Maybe it's the nerd in me.

But I mean, honestly, like I think data is is real, right? I mean, look at a lot of our shippers. It's consolidation of orders. And in most major retailers are starting to say, hey, would you like to bundle all of this stuff together and save a dollar? They're actually passing the savings on to consumers because their savings are substantial, you know.

$10, $15 a shipment, they're going to give you a dollar back. That's a fair trade. And it's actually the green initiative we're talking about. So they're finding better, yeah efficient ways to ship. And as a byproduct, consumers are now benefiting from this as well.

So it's all kind of interconnected in my mind is, again, I know we're talking about the tail end of of operation. They're learning how to sell products better. We're talking about how do we fulfill and get that over to the end consumers better and faster. And it starts with the data.

If I provide the data and I know you're going to buy something more than likely to buy it in a couple of days, yeah, click this button and I'll consolidate it. all I'll push off the delivery. And I know I'm going to what's right by the environment, package it in a better way and get it to you in a timely manner.

Deb Menter
Right. Yeah, for sure. All right. I take it back. Data sexy. There we go. I'm convinced. you yeah um So I want to go back to something we touched on earlier, but I'd really love to, you know, give a little more, you know, shine a little more light around I think what may stop a lot of people from taking this next step into sustainability is it feels, it feels difficult. It feels um like it's going to be be a high cost.

It feels really, know, It's discouraging to try and change your operation. And so what are some of the suggestions about some easy steps you can take and and how we start that process into being more sustainable?

David Murgio
Well, but I mean, to start with, I mean, this this is the beauty of packaging, I think, and the beauty of being more sustainable packaging. I'll talk specifically about switching packaging. But I think that people, everybody, lots of people want to be more sustainable.

There are scientists working in labs right now to, you know, devise a more sustainable piece of plastic for my mouse, right? Right. And that's all good work and that's all great and they should keep doing that.

But it's hard work and it's hard product development, R&D. And ultimately, manufacturers need to potentially have to ask consumers to get used to experiencing their product differently.

The beauty about shifting to more so choosing packaging as a mechanism or a venue to shift to more sustainable operations is you're not asking your customers to get used to a new product.

That'll come and that's hard and that's difficult and that takes a long time. Shifting to more sustainable packaging, is it something you can do right now without asking your customers to experience a different product? So that's the first thing. I mean, packaging is but a terrific place to start for anybody.

Now, as far as shifting to paper packaging and thinking about, you know, you know what are some of the misconceptions about shifting paper packaging or shifting?

The answer is it's actually, people think it's difficult. People think that there's you know damage issues. None of that is the case. We have package engineers who can work with people, but on top of all that, it's easy.

I mean, it's the bottom line. It's easy and inexpensive. Our customers get our machines basically for free for a small user fee but we retain ownership of the machines, which means that there's really little to no capital expense shifting over. We have people who, we have engineers, machine engineers, package engineers who can come in and look and and figure out how best to optimize the footprint, the specific end of line operations.

And it's really not that hard to make the shift. I guess that's the bottom line. It's a beautiful place to start to become more sustainable because you don't have to redesign your products. And it's really not that hard to do. It's a lot easier than I think people typically but suppose.

Justin Laurenzi
Yeah, I love it. I think you just summarized mine. It's like start, like stop waiting, waiting on the path way to get going. Right. If they're shooting for the big pie in the sky and it's like, I'm not going to start unless I can finish this overall thing. You got the wrong way. It's just start doing a little bit. And it's those micro moments that truly provide an ultimate outcome. And if this gets you a little bit better and it's roughly the same. I mean, again, it goes back to price, right? As long as it's economically viable then everybody's going to buy into it. But if there's no, if there's no adverse effects, just start. I'm not asking for full on finish your consolidation, right size your packaging, fix your box size. Don't try to solve world hunger right now. Just make it a little bit better than it was. And ultimately you'll get there, but it's those micro improvements that add up to something greater for everybody.

David Murgio
I agree 100%. We often say it's a low hanging fruit. This is the low hanging fruit. Just take the fruit, and go with it and this is the low hanging fruit is a great way to start and time will come. We're going to figure out a better product, you know, but this is a place to start. We can start right now.

I agree with you hundred percent, Justin. I should have used, should have let you go first and I would have just said yes. i mean good word Start. Start's all we need. Start. Just start. Just start. I love that.

Deb Menter
So let's, I just want to wrap up this conversation. Are there, you know, in addition to thinking there's a high cost or it's really difficult, are there any other common misconceptions or myths about sustainable packaging that we should be busting here today and so getting people to start with it? Or is anything else to add?

David Murgio
I mean, I think that we summed it up with with our art our where we just were, which is that it's here, it's ready, it's on the barrel head, you can start tomorrow. And there's no reason not to start to

Justin Laurenzi
To me, I think the other misconception is adding more box sizes add more complexity to your shipping operations, right? Which is partly true, right? If you're shipping one or two products, that's one thing. If you're shipping 15 to 20 products, yes, you probably need different box sizes, but it doesn't mean you can't get more intelligent around how you figure out your box sizes.

Again, unsexy thing we just talked about called data will eventually get you there. Right. It'll make your life little bit easier and better in the outcome. Because again, if you don't need 15 box sizes, you've got 15 products. You don't need one per product.

Maybe one will actually satisfy all of them. So you can still figure out a more effective way to source products, fill products, and ship ultimately what you're getting at, which is the product in which you're selling. so to me, it also comes into that.

Deb Menter
I love it. I think that's a great place to stop. And the bottom line is go for it. Go for it. Start today. So thank you both so much for your time, your expertise, your advice.

If you liked what you heard, definitely like and subscribe. And we'll see you on the next episode of UnBoxed.