Special Delivery: How One Box Cuts Packaging in Half

“Packaging is sometimes an afterthought,” says Rich Hastings, the mastermind behind Nike’s custom shoebox designs for more than 20 years. “But what people may not realize is that it can have a huge impact on the environment.”

You may have noticed that impact when the shoes you bought online arrive in their shoebox, surrounded by another box. “We knew we had the opportunity to make our existing model better,” he says.

Rich and team had the chance to do just that when they worked on the 2020 release of Space Hippie — a line of shoes made with at least 25 percent to 50 percent recycled material by weight that needed an audaciously low-impact container to match their future-focused design.

“Space Hippie was the jumping off point,” says Erica Swanson from sustainable product operations. “We wanted to have an innovative system that shipped a shoe in its own container, rather than shipping a box within another box.”

So when you buy one pair of shoes online, this eliminates an entire box from your order — and your recycling bin. Sounds simple, but like any industry-leading concept, it would take a lot of work to bring to fruition.

“It was meant to be a limited release. So we said, ‘Let’s be daring and try something we’re not sure is going to work,’” says Rich of the sneaker collection that shipped in its own oblong shoebox.

“But the shoes were so popular, we had to scale up and fast. We got a lot of feedback that the box wasn’t durable enough to withstand the rigors of shipping, so we got to work updating it based on those learnings.”

Rich and team ran a battery of engineering exercises, like crush tests that beat up the box, to make sure it would survive the journey to your door. Those tests helped the team build an even stronger container — and proved that the design could work on a way bigger scale.

The result of dreaming and testing big? Nike One Box. This current design can house almost any shoe Nike makes. And although it may look different from the box that started it all, its intent is the same: reduce waste.

Shipping shoes in their shoebox and ditching the outer box (plus any extra packaging) add up to big wins.

“Our team worked together to really obsess over how the customer would interact with the box,” says Chris Conklin from packaging design.

Take a tour through the result of all that detailed work:

1. Stealthy Exterior
   From afar One Box might seem underwhelming — but that’s the whole point. “It was a strategic choice for security,” says Chris of the logo-free design. “We didn’t want the box advertising that new shoes were sitting on your stoop.”
   
2. Tape-Free Returns
   The lid of the box is secured with an adhesive strip to cut down on tape waste. But sometimes things don’t work out, so the team knew they also had to solve for how shoppers would handle returns. That’s why they added a second strip of adhesive that lets you reseal the box and return the shoes.
   
3. No-Smudge Graphics
   “We tried using different colors for graphics inside the box,” says Chris. “But when we noticed the ink rubbed off on white midsoles, we switched to white to keep the product perfect.”
   
   And how we applied that white ink stayed true to the overall mission of reducing waste. “We were thinking about water use when printing,” says Chris. “We wanted the design to be minimal enough that we could keep the overall footprint low.”

Does this mean One Box is going to replace all existing shoeboxes? No, not right away. Millions of units are shipping this year, and that number is only expected to grow through meticulous testing and refinement. “Even though it’s large, we’re still in pilot mode,” says Erica. “There’s opportunity for One Box to evolve over time – how it looks, what it’s used for and how many boxes we can save.”

And just as Space Hippie inspired this game-changing container, One Box is sparking new ideas for changing other packaging practices. For example, reducing the amount of paper used to stuff the toes of shoes, or doing away with the plastic bags that encase individual apparel items.

Rich notes that it’s part of a bigger story: Nike’s overall push to reduce product packaging, an effort that is constantly evolving.

For more: Visit Nike.com/Sustainability to follow each step in our journey and discover new ways we can Move to Zero carbon and zero waste together.