Single-use packaging is synonymous with cheap disposability. Or is it?
Luxury brands are increasingly using biomaterials packaging to signal craft, intentionality, and identity.
In high-end retails, companies have been using bio-based packaging both as storytelling devices and decarbonisation tools.
Swiss watchmaker ID Genève is highlighting its “impact-first” identity with compostable seaweed cases, showcasing how bio-packaging can be a key branding opportunity.
Meanwhile, luxury multinational LVMH is investing in entire bio-based supply chains to support sustainability targets.
In response, more startups like ReKrill are developing biomaterials targeted at the luxury packaging space.
But first, what makes luxury packaging different from mass-market options?
Packaging as marketing
Packaging is a powerful marketing tool, particularly for the luxury space. The way that boxes and cases look, feel, and smell give compelling cues to buyers about product quality.
But it’s not only about how packaging looks and feels. It’s about how the packaging was made and what it says about the brand.
Companies that promote a sustainable ethic undermine their messaging when they use fossil-based packaging, losing trust among customers who value ethical supply chains and brand authenticity.
Circular materials express a green brand identity, not just through presentation but in the materials and production – in other words, the stuff that actually matters when it comes to proving sustainable commitments.
Telling a story with trash
A growing number of bio-based startups are designing bio-packaging specifically for the luxury space. One of those is ReKrill, based in Italy.
ReKrill takes diverse non-edible materials like orange peel, coffee grounds and wine residues into design-forward containers for luxury retail.
Its material hits the sustainability hat-trick: circular, biodegradable, compostable. Yet more than this, ReKrill also believes that bio-based packaging can be central to communicating brand identity to the customer.
“Being able to say that your packaging is made from recovered orange peel, lemon peel or nut shells adds a strong level of storytelling,” ReKrill CEO Ivan Calimani told Formes de Luxe. “In cosmetics, for example, a brand could have a product formulated with orange essential oil and use oranges in the packaging,” Calimani commented.
Seaweed boxes for luxury watches
ReKrill’s insight is that bio-packaging is not so much about hitting sustainability metrics. It can also layer brand narratives in a cohesive and memorable way.
One luxury company that has tapped into the story-telling powers of bio-based packaging is ID Genève. The company is known as the first ‘impact native’ luxury watch brand in the industry, founded with the express purpose of creating sustainable watches.
Using materials like recycled steel and grape residue, ID Genève marries Swiss craft with ecologically aware forms of production.
ID Genève wanted packaging that underlined its commitment to sustainable manufacturing. To do this, it collaborated with London-based startup Notpla, which makes packaging out of seaweed.
The material they selected was Notpla Rigid. Made entirely from seaweed and plants, the has many of the properties associated with ordinary plastic, such as strength coupled with mouldability. It is also totally home-compostable, breaking down naturally within 4 to 5 weeks.
The resulting watch case also highlights the practical performance aspects of Notpla Rigid. The case functions like an ordinary watch case, consisting of two parts that cocoon the product. This secure, interlocking structure speaks to the precision-mouldability of the material.
More than this, the seaweed feedstock makes the case integral to telling the brand story. Seaweed is a much lower carbon feedstock source than petroleum. It’s also an incredibly rare material in the luxury watch space. The uniqueness of the material, as well as its green credentials, picks out the distinctiveness of ID Genève’s ethos.
Sulapac’s soft-touch luxury
Luxury is often about the physical qualities of a product. Soft, velvety surfaces have the tactile allure of a high-end item in and of themselves.
Flocked materials fill this niche for luxurious textures in the packaging world. Flocking is when millions of microscopic fibres are applied to a substrate, creating a soft, dense, and velvety texture perfect for packaging in beauty applications.
Flocking is a go-to in luxury packaging. However, most options on the market are still made from fossil-based plastics.
One of the few companies that offer a bio-based alternative to velvet-soft flocking is Finland’s Sulapac, an eco-packaging company.
Sulapac entered the flocked packaging space in May 2026 at the PCD Milan, launching its new Sulapac Flow material. This wood cellulose-based composite is a more sustainable alternative to standard flocked packaging, where the substrate and flock fibres are both bio-based and biodegradable.
Sulapac’s bio-based flocking boxes were aimed squarely at the luxury beauty market. This is a space the company is already familiar with, having supplied Chanel in 2021 with bio-based fragrance bottle caps for its Les Eaux de Chanel fragrance.
Stora Enso is another Finnish brand that has developed a wood-based flocking material. Its Papira is fully customisable in colour, gloss, pattern, and texture.
The physical versatility of fossil plastics is one of the things that makes them so compelling in the packaging industry.
Companies like Sulapac and Stora Enso are proving that bio-based doesn’t mean aesthetic compromise, showing how even ordinary wood can transform into luxury finishes with the right processing.
LVMH’s bioplastic investments
The aesthetic potential of bio-packaging affords ample marketing opportunities for brands.
However, bio-packaging also has another more practical purpose: decarbonisation. To significantly reduce the luxury sector’s carbon footprint, however, biomaterials would need to scale dramatically.
The biggest luxury bio-packaging collaboration of the moment is between chemicals giant Dow and LVMH – both heavyweights in their respective industries. The pair are collaborating to scale-up sustainable packaging for use across LVMH’s portfolio of 75 brands.
Dow’s biomaterial Surlyn is at the centre of the effort. In late 2023, Dow commercially launched two bioplastic grades that use alternative feedstocks under the Surlyn brand: Surlyn REN (used cooking oil) and Surlyn CIR (mixed plastic waste).
LVMH Beauty was the first to integrate Dow’s Surlyn REN and Surlyn CIR at commercial scale. The material is already used for the bottle cap of La Petite Robe Noire, a perfume made by LVMH’s Guerlain.
A supply chain builder
According to LVMH, the partnership with Dow is aimed at helping the brand eliminate fossil plastics in its packaging.
As of 2025, the company had made some progress on its goal, with 41% of its product and packaging coming from recycled sources or eco-designed materials. However, there’s still a long way to go for the company.
To decarbonise across multiple global brands, production volume matters. The LVMH-Dow collab aims at developing bio-based packaging from a niche into a mass commodity that can replace fossil materials at scale.
This is an ambitious goal but companies with the size and influence of LVMH have a chance at building supply chains from the ground up.
Dow is not the only bio-based supplier that LVMH is working with to scale bio-based packaging materials. In 2025, LVMH GAÏA, the scientific and environmental R&D division of LVMH, entered a consortium with renewable materials producer Avantium to scale releaf, a renewable and recyclable PEF polymer developed by the company.
Releaf is a bio-based material that is recyclable and made entirely from renewable feedstocks. It holds promise for the fashion and beauty industry as a plant-based alternative to fossil PET, one of the most common packaging materials in the world. The project, which also includes plant material processor Tereos, aims to speed up releaf’s industrial production.
LVMH is certainly the most active luxury name working to scale bio-based packaging. However, scale and cost are not the only considerations for the house when it comes to using bio-based packaging.
Swedish skincare brand Ole Henriksen, owned by LVMH, is leveraging unusual biomaterials with unique sensory qualities. Here again, the marketing value of biomaterials shines through.
Ole Henriksen is using a limestone-based material called Limex for its Banana Bright CC stick. Containing at least 50% calcium carbonate, the matte texture and weightiness of the material afford a tactile experience that fit for a high-end beauty brand.
A milestone for biomaterials
Luxury houses are incorporating more and more bio-based materials into their range, reaching for bio-based plastics that offer the same customisability as fossil plastics.
This is in response to a changing market, where buyers are increasingly aware of the destructive impacts of single-use fossil packaging.
For them, biodegradable, circular, and low-carbon packaging is becoming non-negotiable, particularly for sustainable products.
Yet beyond the eco-credentials, luxury consumers still expect a sensory experience from their packaging. Today, advances in bio-based manufacturing mean eco-packaging has the aesthetic qualities associated with luxury, enabling brands to tell a story, not just hit sustainability metrics.
In many ways, the proliferation of luxury bio-based options is a sign of maturity for the sector. The fact that there is a luxury niche for biomaterials proves they can match fossil plastics not just on performance but on aesthetic features that speak to the consumer – a significant milestone for the bioeconomy.
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