In July 2026, Today, beauty brands do not consider sustainable packaging just as a formality, but as a responsibility to balance aesthetics with it, at the same time, for maximum consumer engagement. Ahead of London Packaging Week 2026 (September 16–17), its organizer, Easyfairs, has highlighted the industry’s move from sustainability as a design feature to a regulatory requirement.
Perspectives from WRAP, Gentlebrand, and Beyondly highlight various important factors such as regulation, circularity, and changing consumer expectations, clearly explaining how brands can create an ideal balance between ecological responsibilities and maintaining aesthetic appeal.
Aesthetic packaging is often the first weapon a beauty brand uses to attract maximum consumer attention. On the other hand, growing consumer awareness regarding sustainability is compelling beauty brands to manage an ideal balance between aesthetics and sustainability. Nowadays, brands are increasingly facing issues such as growing material scarcity, regulatory pressure, and heightened consumer awareness. Hence, beauty and ecology today are becoming inseparable measures of packaging design.
“[Sustainability] is not the main topic anymore, but it’s still present in every briefing,” says Uwe Melichar, sustainable packaging expert and VP at the European Brand and Packaging Design Association. “You’ll always find sustainability aspects. It has become more of a hygienic factor; something brands simply need to get right.”
He adds that the focus has shifted away from headline innovation, with brands now concentrating on “doing the fundamentals properly, like moving toward mono-materials and ensuring what they do is genuinely right.”
“Packaging is increasingly a semantic tool part of our non-verbal language,” says Andrea Rizzardi, director at Gentlebrand. “We choose products because we feel a connection with a brand. In a commodity-driven market, what matters most is brand personality, and the semiotic power of packaging to let consumers express themselves through what they buy.”
Today, the beauty industry ensures that its packaging is designed smartly. It should not just be aesthetic and appealing for the liking of customers and to attract them, but it should also be sustainable, allowing the brands to do their bit for the environment. Some personal care brands like Fussy and Wild deodorant have integrated refillable and reusable formats with circular systems to reduce reliance on single-use packaging. These moves reshape brand identity and consumer interaction, according to Easyfairs.
Catherine David, CEO at WRAP, clearly states that refillable cosmetic formats offer consumers novelty and also support the establishment of brand loyalty.
In the previous decades, sustainability was considered a huge task to be followed by any industry. Hence, it was also considered a high-cost-incurring option and a huge restraint in growth. But today, smart technology has helped the industries to easily incorporate the eco-friendly method into the packaging procedure and make it appealing as well as sustainable. Easyfairs states that this framing is “increasingly obsolete.”
Industry players are viewing sustainability requirements as an opportunity for intelligent design. Intelligence, in this context, is “visible in the evolution of packaging from static object to connected system. Reusable formats increasingly rely on digital infrastructure QR codes, RFID, and tracking systems to maintain circulation and prevent loss within the value chain,” says Easyfairs.
This form of tracking and overview supplies data that provides brands with a “huge opportunity” to gain insights about their consumers’ behavior and their products, according to David.
Talia Goldman, environmental, social, and governance director at Sabert, sees the guidelines around sustainability as an opportunity for thinking outside the box.
“This can help to drive innovation, pushing designers and manufacturers to solve the challenges pushed forward by these constraints and engage in a bit of healthy competition,” she says.
As per Easyfairs, regulation is one of the most important factors for packaging design. Frameworks such as the UK’s packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) are trying to inculcate environmental consequences directly into the early stages of beauty packaging, as per Easyfairs.
On the other hand, luxury brands prefer to pay more attention to their design and aesthetic rather than experimenting with it. Aesthetics and a staple appearance for luxury brands play a major role; such brands do not wish to compromise with their looks, including excessive weight, layering, and material richness.
“High-end luxury beauty brands may just take the hit with higher fees because their packaging is so tied to the prestige of a brand,” says David.
“Sustainability and packaging design are now central priorities for the luxury sector, with growing pressure to demonstrate authenticity, responsibility, and transparency,” says Michael Jennings, Policy & Public Affairs advisor at Beyondly.
“As pEPR increases both financial and environmental expectations, luxury brands must balance aesthetics with circularity, creating packaging that is not only a beautiful extension of the product, but also recyclable, lightweight, and materially efficient.”
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