A VC in Vacationland

Image via CrunchBase

Imagine opening a
beautifully-packaged iPad, whose very box is aesthetically pleasing and
minimally wasteful.

Now imagine unpacking an
appliance from Costco that’s swathed in ugly, non-recyclable styrofoam and
plastic wrap.

Which company’s product are you
going to be happier about in your first few minutes of using it? Probably not
the one that forces you to figure out how to deal with several cubic feet of
non-crushable plastics that are likely to fill up your garbage can and then
live on for centuries in a landfill.

According to Xconomy,  PCH
International, a 3,000-person global company with $80 million in
funding from a wide range of venture capital firms, is opening a new sustainable package design center in San Francisco.

The company’s Sustainable
Packaging Design Centre of Excellence will include a material library, a
structural design engineering and quality test lab, and will be based in
Shenzhen, China. The company will also open a  showroom and material
library in San Francisco early in 2013, placing its services in closer reach of
Silicon Valley companies — those that still make hardware products, that is,
rather than Facebook games or iPhone apps.

Sustainable packaging can be good
for the bottom line, too — not just good marketing and customer experience. In
one case study,
the company claims it helped reduce packaging time from 180 seconds to 15
seconds, eliminate the use of PVC plastic, reduce card stock usage from 90g to
50g, and more than double the number of units that could fit on a single shipping
pallet, reducing the client’s packaging costs by 91 percent.

PCH is a services company that
helps companies set up their manufacturing supply chains, primarily through its
relationships with manufacturers in Shenzhen, China. Based in Cork, Ireland, PCH
was founded in 1996 by Liam Casey. Its backers include Cross Creek Capital,
Focus Venture Partners, J. Christopher Burch, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Fung
Capital, Northbrooks Investments, Norwest Venture Partners, and Triangle Peak
Partners.