For its best-selling product, the golf ball, the small Finnish company Golf Coat uses a package that turns into an insect hotel. After fulfilling its role as packaging, this flat cardboard box, currently distributed in Finland, Sweden, Korea and Japan, provides an artificial nesting structure and shelter for insects and pollinators.
"Our goal was to create a simple, smart and cost-effective structure that would be easy to assemble and fill with, for example, leaves, sawdust or dry grass after its primary use as a golf ball box." explains Aki Kuivaniemi, CEO of Golf Coat.
In order to develop this packaging, the company approached Finnish paper manufacturer Metsä Board, which organized an online workshop.
"To create the insect hotel concept, we needed close cooperation between all partners. The design process involved Golf Coat, who came up with the idea, the packaging design company Futupack, the packaging converter Pyroll and our own designers." says Ilkka Harju, Director of Packaging Services EMEA and APAC at Metsä Board.
"This is a concrete example of a circular economy, where a product, after its primary use, has another function before ending up in recycling." says the paper group.
In addition to helping biodiversity, the insect hotel also reinforces the ecological image of the sport of golf, notes the Golf Coat executive.
