How can we solve the problem of increasing packaging waste caused by e-commerce? In 2018 we started in a team of six to take on that challenge supported by a fellowship program of the Social Entrepreneurship Academy in Munich, Germany. We bring in diverse backgrounds and perspectives ranging from data science, engineering, web and graphics design to business, economics, and political science. Our common passion is to develop solutions for our society’s problems and challenges using an entrepreneurial approach.

Throughout the course we intensively worked on the idea of establishing a multiple-use system for e-commerce packaging boxes. We dived deep into the research of e-commerce logistics, took on the roles of the sender, receiver and even parcel deliverer, and worked on the perfect reusable shipping box. The high-tech multi-use packaging prototypes were very impressive, but would require a lot more resources for production than conventional packaging and therefore many more lifecycles.

We had to make sure that we find the most impactful – not the most fancy – solution. So while we did our prototyping of the reusable box we always came back to realizing that the conventional cardboard box was not so bad after all: The decisive criteria are lightweight, robust, an economic price, and space-saving storage. Finally we had to ask ourselves: Is there really a need for another packaging solution? What if we could even use that conventional box for a multiple-use system? We had become a great team and were eager to test that idea in real conditions.