Why we’ve made our packaging brown

From now on, Galaxus and digitec will be sending out brown packages, not white ones. What might look like a trivial branding decision at first glance is actually an environmentally conscious redesign. Thanks to our new packages and shorter delivery routes, we expect to save over 200 tonnes of CO₂ emissions in this year alone. That’s roughly equivalent to the emissions produced by 40 detached houses with oil heating.

The smaller portion of these savings comes from swapping out the corrugated cardboard coating on our boxes. Instead of using bleached recycled cardboard, we now use untreated recycled cardboard. What has a bigger impact is the transportation route: «Instead of coming from northern Germany and Scandinavia, the cardboard now comes from factories in southern Germany,» says Gerhard Fust, who’s responsible for cardboard packaging at Digitec Galaxus. We source the other elements of the boxes from Southern Germany, too.

We’re introducing foldable boxes, available in eight sizes, in our hand packaging area this week. In about two weeks, our four new packing machines will start producing made-to-measure cardboard boxes. We’ll be using up the cardboard we still have in stock in the next few days.

Boxes for all of Europe

Besides the colour change, our neutral «Digitec Galaxus AG» logo will also disappear from the packaging. Instead, we’ve designed our new packages to be covered in Galaxus branding. «This ensures a consistent appearance across countries,» explains Creative Director Flurin Spring.

A little reminder: the Galaxus online store successfully launched in Germany in 2018, with Austria following four years later. Electronics specialist digitec, however, remains Switzerland-based. In addition to the colourful, playful pattern and the Galaxus turtle, packages destined for Germany and Austria will also be printed with the Galaxus lettering: «Because we're still less well known there than in Switzerland and Liechtenstein,» explains Flurin.

More ridges, less padding

Our newly designed foldable boxes also have more ridges, which allows us to fold our boxes to different heights. As a result, there’s less empty space inside the boxes, meaning we can save on filler material – and it’ll save space in the delivery truck, too. Plus, it’s good for the environment.

Incidentally, except for one type of box, all our shipping packaging is made of recycled paper. Only our largest foldable box still contains a layer of so-called corrugated cardboard, a particularly robust material requiring fresh wood fibres. So, at the moment we’re working with a quota of 95 per cent recycled cardboard for our boxes.

What do you think of our new packaging design? How important is sustainable shipping to you? What would you do differently if you were in our shoes? Let us know in the comments!