Forget unboxing. Meet Inboxing

Metsä Board and Kathryn Kellogg launch a new initiative revealing the decisions behind packaging.

Metsä Board and author and sustainability creator Kathryn Kellogg, founder of Going Zero Waste, are launching Inboxing, a new initiative that explores the decisions behind packaging long before the finished pack reaches consumers.

The packaging consumers use every day tells only part of the story. Behind it are choices that influence everything from product protection and consumer experience to cost and environmental impact.

Inboxing brings these decisions into the spotlight, revealing what happens before a package is produced and why those early choices matter.

Kathryn Kellogg, founder of Going Zero Waste, is known for translating complex sustainability topics into language that resonates with consumers. Through Inboxing, she helps bridge the gap between packaging experts, brands and consumers, making visible the choices and trade offs that shape packaging performance, sustainability and user experience long before a package reaches the market.

‘Inboxing is about making the invisible visible,’ said Kathryn Kellogg. ‘Consumers see the finished package, but the real story lies in the decisions behind it. Understanding those decisions helps us have a more informed conversation about sustainable packaging.’

Brands are under pressure to reduce the environmental impact of packaging without compromising safety, performance or consumer expectations. That means looking beyond any single attribute and understanding how each choice affects the whole packaging solution.

Inboxing examines packaging choices from multiple perspectives, recognising that the right solution depends on the product, the value chain and the available evidence, not on a predetermined preference for one material. Rather than asking which material is best, Inboxing encourages a different question: what does this package need to achieve, and what evidence supports the choices made?

Improving one attribute does not automatically improve the overall outcome. A package must protect the product, work efficiently throughout the value chain, meet consumer expectations and support sustainability goals.

‘The best packaging solutions balance multiple objectives and are rarely a result of a single decision. The starting point should be what the packaging needs to achieve across its lifecycle and the evidence behind each decision,’ said Erja Hyrsky, senior vice president, commercial operations at Metsä Board.

‘With Inboxing, we want to bring brands, designers, packaging experts and sustainability specialists into the conversation early enough to challenge assumptions, compare options and shape better packaging solutions.’