WIP What role does sustainability play in your design process, and how do you incorporate eco-friendly practices?

SK It’s critical to all packaging projects, and we are building our packaging offering with sustainability as an integrated core, not an add-on to our core delivery. Sustainability is complex, and rarely is there one definitive answer to a question, so that’s why we always test theories, calculations, and methods regarding responsibility. Concretely, we use tools, research, and analysis to calculate CO2e equivalents.

WIP Do you feel any responsibility regarding your clients, considering your focus on sustainability?

SK We don't think our efforts are best used if we only choose to help those well on their way to a sustainable solution. We have to be able to work with the traditional laggards, too, not just the sustainability incumbents. Most often, our clients are very sustainability-minded. However, I’d say it’s still very rare for a client to have the possibility of choosing sustainability over finances, even though they truly have the motivation to be more responsible. But we are optimistic that we’re going to get there.

WIP How do you envision the future role of design in addressing societal challenges and driving positive change?

SK As designers, we gain access to many of our clients' key challenges, as design impacts all parts of a business. We often encounter challenges where not enough effort has been put into solving very specific problems, and the solutions have often ended up being how they are by default. With the right brief, designers can solve large-scale problems no one has solved before. That’s inspiring to me, and it showcases that our industry is still young.

WIP What key skills or qualities do you look for when hiring new designers to join your team?

SK Across visual and industrial design teams, curiosity and ambition to design novel solutions are the most important skills and qualities to have when working with packaging at Kurppa Hosk Packaging.

WIP Can you share a memorable project that challenged your team creatively and professionally? What did you learn from it?

SK One example is the bedding packaging we designed with Tekla. It was a big challenge as the existing box they had was both beautiful and functional. However, it was expensive to make and had quite a large footprint. We ended up removing 88% of the CO2e (cradle to gate) and cutting the cost in half while still creating something that felt fresh, on-brand, and tactile.

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