Will Anderson, Harmless: “I noticed a change in consumer demand”.

Interview with Will Anderson
Ellen MacArthur Foundation review Harmless Packaging

We talk to Will Anderson, creator of the dissolvable ‘plastic’ bag, about moving beyond greenwash and exporting better practices to fast-developing economies.

Can you tell us how Harmless, part of Cyberpac, was created?
Cyberpac is part of the Ant group, which employs about 35 people and has a turnover of approximately 6 to 7 million Pounds. The company’s products and expertise are present in various areas, from defense to medical to the creative industry, which is our space. Cyberpac has been going for about 10 years, I took over the business 18 months ago and quickly noticed a change in consumer demand that coincided with what I could see on a personal level: people really wanted more sustainable packaging, less plastic… But at the same time, I found the message sent by major businesses was terribly confusing, and to put things simply I realised there was an awful lot of greenwashing. That’s why we decided to launch our brand, one that would be quite ‘niche’, but very clearly under the heading of ‘compostable’. We did not want to be confused with the myriad of bio-degradable products available – everything is bio-degradable, it just depends how long you’re prepared to wait. We tackled the market by launching ‘Harmless Dissolve’, the bag that dissolves in water wrapped around Creative Review, and the response was phenomenal. I could barely answer the emails fast enough, they were coming from all over the world and notably from emerging economies that are more agile in their ability to change practices. Russia in particular, and government-backed companies, were very keen to get in touch. Some came to film and have a chat with us in our offices, then spread the word in their country through a web feature On the back of that, we’ve had numerous enquiries and are about to sign a contract – fingers crossed – for a substantial run of envelopes for a leading Russian social magazine.

To read the full article please click here.

Disclaimer: Some images hosted on this blog have been collected from external research associates to be presented as stimulus to those seeking news from the cutting edge of packaging. The imagery is not being presented as our own and copyright still belongs to the owner/creator of said work.