the winter Energy efficient light systems equipped with motion sensors: environmentally friendly reduction of storage costs Rainwater harvesting Low water use appliances Sustainable building materials Packaging Rising climate change awareness started contributing to the need of considering sustainability in packaging decisions. Sustainability objectives relate to packaging life cycle in terms of material sourcing, packaging design, manufacturing, transportation and disposal. According to Sustainable Packaging Coalition, packaging can be considered sustainable if it meets the following criteria: Is beneficial, safe & healthy for individuals and communities throughout its life cycle Meets market criteria for both performance and cost Is sourced, manufactured, transported, and recycled using renewable energy Uses renewable or recycled source materials Is manufactured using clean production technologies and best practices Is physically designed to optimize materials and energy Is effectively recovered and utilized in biological and/or industrial closed loop cycles Besides the traditional “3 R’s” of “reduce”, “reuse”, and “recycle”, the “7 R’s” of Eco Friendly Packaging principles should be applied to the packaging and product development to move towards sustainability objectives: Renew - use materials made from renewable resources Reuse - use materials over and over when economically feasible Recycle - use materials made of highest recycled content without compromising quality Remove - eliminate unnecessary packaging, extra boxes or layers Reduce - minimize and optimize packaging materials Revenue - achieve all above principles at equal or lower cost Read - get educated on sustainability, educate producers and customers Optimizing packaging materials and design can significantly help to optimize logistics by improving vehicle load. For example, changing firm packaging to flexible can help to deliver maximum lorry load per kilometer travelled, increasing the volume of goods being transported by lorry and thus reduce emission over time and costs optimization. Labeling Labeling is an important means of communicating with consumers about sustainable consumption, and it plays a critical role in shopping for food and domestic appliances. Used as a promotional mechanism, eco-labels inform customers about social and environmental effects, the possibilities of recycling the product and its packaging, methods of production (e.g., bio farming), product’s characteristics (e.g., vegan), or the producer’s way of running business (e.g.Fair Trade / Marine Strewardship Council). There is a challenge for consumers to recognize, understand, and cope with the sheer number of emerging labels that deal with specific aspects of the sustainability agenda. Reverse logistics Reverse logistics has become an important extension within the supply chain