Marybelle packaging wins Green Award

A milk container made from a type of pulp found in egg cartons has won the best packaging design category at the second Green Awards, held at the Guildhall, London EC2, last Friday.

The Green Awards were set up last year with the aim of rewarding businesses for communicating sustainability in a creative and original way.

Manufacturer Greenbottle’s Marybelle milk container, designed by the company’s managing director Martin Myerscough, was ‘one of the most compelling and interesting bits of packaging’ of this year’s awards, according to awards organiser Iain Patton.

It saw off competition from Nokia for its Nokia 1200 handset packaging, and Adnams Brewer and Leisure Retailer for its lightweight glass design.

The rigid, leak-proof container, with compostable interior pouch, was first trialed in May this year at Asda in Lowestoft, Suffolk, and goes some way to tackle the issue that only 7 per cent of the 9 billion plastic bottles in the UK are being recycled, according to Patton.

Car brand Honda scooped the Grand Prix prize for its Formula One campaign to get fans to switch to energy-saving lightbulbs, devised by PR agency Henry’s House.

The campaign ‘best exemplified an outstanding environmental message and had the greatest capacity to raise awareness among the general public’, according to the judging panel.

Although Honda’s entry was controversial, the judges felt the campaign’s ‘imaginative response that got people thinking, and had many reappraise their relationship with the sport’ merited an honour.

The Carbon Trust won best website, with a design by advertising agency Tequila.

Chief executive of the Energy Saving Trust Philip Sellwood; international vice chair and executive director of Friends Of the Earth Tony Juniper; spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme Nick Nuttal; and senior vice-president of McCann Erickson Mike Longhurst were among those presenting awards.

Last year’s Grand Prix prize went to mobile giant O₂ for its Letterbox Challenge, which allowed consumers to opt out of having a new charger with an upgraded phone, which in turn, enabled packages to be posted, rather than couriered.

The Green Awards are supported by various marketing trade press publications.