London Packaging Week catches up with Sarah Mwathunga, Strategic Lead for Beauty Futures at Design Bridge and Partners, to explore the emotional, cultural, and environmental forces set to reshape consumer experiences over the next decade.
Looking toward 2035, a future that once felt distant is now close enough to shape. It’s a time charged with urgency and opportunity, where design is no longer a final flourish but a foundational force for change. The real challenge lies in making what is good feel effortless, creating systems, experiences, and choices that are not just responsible but deeply desirable.
Across industries, attention is turning to the shifting rhythms of human behaviour. What people value, how they feel, what they expect – everything is in motion. Understanding this emotional and cultural landscape will be key to creating work that resonates, endures and leads.
And then there are those already living the future, showing what it takes to turn bold ideas into real impact. Businesses built on vision, scaled through persistence, and fueled by the belief that doing better is not just possible, but essential. Their stories offer a glimpse of what can happen when creativity, courage and conviction align.
London Packaging Week has always offered a glimpse into what’s next, so it felt only right to seek out someone whose job is to predict the future. Sarah Mwathunga, Strategic Lead for Beauty Futures at Design Bridge and Partners, spends her days decoding the shifts shaping tomorrow’s consumers. From generational dynamics to design innovation, her perspective maps a future we’re already beginning to inhabit.
“Just imagine as if you’re in the year 2035,” she suggests. “It might seem far, but it’s actually not that far to think about.” The next decade will be defined not only by technological leaps and environmental tipping points, but by the evolution of human identity across five living generations and one just beginning to be born.
To understand what matters in the future, we must start with who the future is for. Each generation brings a unique lens to life, culture and consumption, all shaped by their life stage in 2035.
“For Gen X, who’ll be 55 to 70, they’ll be very much in their late careers or early retirement,” Sarah tells London Packaging Week. “They’re focused on being healthier and they’re seeking simplicity because they were kind of the pioneers of the hustle culture and the grind. They’re easing away from that.”
Millennials, by contrast, will be in their prime working years. “They’ll be 39 to 54, in the peak of their career and very much struggling with work and family life,” she continues. “But that tension is key, because their values are still very much influenced by how they were raised. That shapes how they choose brands and how they shop.”
Gen Z, already reshaping everything from social norms to spending habits, will be aged 23 to 38. And their entry into adulthood is anything but conventional. “Adulthood is very fluid and it’s very much dependent on how they identify themselves, it’s all about living authentically to themselves,” Sarah says. The younger end will be building careers, while the older cohort may be starting families and rethinking what parenting looks like in a changed world.
Generation Alpha, aged 10 to 22 in 2035, is the first to grow up with AI as an everyday companion. “AI right now is this buzzword,” Sarah says, “but ultimately, in 10 years’ time, it will be this invisible canvas that walks with us every single day. And that’s definitely true for this generation.” They are conscious, connected and discerning, not easily impressed by corporate claims. “They’re not looking for brands that say, ‘We’re sustainable, we’re accessible, we’re diverse.’ It has to be inherent in your brand truth.”
And then there’s Generation Beta. Still hypothetical, still being born, but already imagined. “It’s a bit odd to speak about because they’re actually being born, probably literally as we speak,” she smiles. But their traits are emerging through research and the values passed down from their Millennial and Gen Z parents. “They’re going to be one of the most AI-native generations we’ll ever see. They’re raised to be climate-conscious, emotionally intelligent, and wired to reimagine systems.”
A changing planet and the rise of longevity
This reimagining isn’t abstract, it’s urgent. Alongside generational change comes an accelerating shift in our environment and population.
“There’ll be 8.9 billion people on the planet,” Sarah notes. “And 5.7 billion of them will be living in more urban cities, so it’s going to be more densely populated.” Meanwhile, the planet heats up. “Temperatures are rising. What used to be once-per-century heat waves are now happening once per year. I actually read something the other day that said currently we’re experiencing the coolest summer that we’ll ever experience in our lifetime.”
These realities will shape everything, from infrastructure and architecture to clothing, product design and packaging. “Architects and businesses are going to have to start thinking: ‘how do we create homes that allow for cooler temperatures?’” Sarah says. And innovation is already surfacing. “Fashion brands are coming out with UPF fashion that allows you to cool down in the sun… brands are thinking around laundry room solutions that imbue some protection within your clothes as you wash them.”
The future will also be older and healthier. “People are living longer because they’re actually living healthier lifestyles,” Sarah says. And wellbeing, once a luxury or an afterthought, is becoming foundational. “It used to be an add-on, but now it’s imbued in every single part of everybody’s lives.”
Even luxury is adapting. “Companies like Equinox offer a membership called Optimise, it’s $40,000 a year, designed to help you live longer, ultimately.” It’s extreme, yes, but it signals a mindset shift. Longevity is a new aspiration.
Packaging for a circular future
Governments are catching up too, slowly but decisively, with regulations that push packaging towards circularity. Brands are responding with ingenuity. “Cancan, for example, has products like liquid hand wash where you keep the cap, but the bottle actually changes,” says Sarah. Others are “thinking about the entire lifecycle, not just the pack, making sure it kind of disappears.”
So, what does all of this mean for the categories that shape daily life – food, drink, home care and beauty?
“In food, we’re moving beyond nutrition and fuel,” she says. “We’re shifting to a place where food is about comfort, culture and resilience.” That means exploring identity through taste, reconnecting to heritage, and cutting waste. “Brands are responding, with packaging that connects to your phone and tells you how many days you have left to cook the food, which again minimises food waste.”
Drinks, too, are evolving. “They’re all about mood enhancers now. They’re tech-enabled, vibe-driven.” Think Coca-Cola’s AI-created flavour “Year 3000” or mood-matching cocktails. “So how do we design drinks that still emotionally connect to humans?”
In the home care space, technology makes the mundane disappear — literally. “Platforms like Amazon now have AI agents that shop on your behalf,” Sarah says. “Samsung has created laundry systems that go from wash to dry without you doing anything.” As automation increases, packaging will still need to deliver trust, efficacy and sensory pleasure, even if no one ever sees the bottle.
And then there’s beauty, a category under intense scrutiny. “It’s one of the categories that produces the most waste – 95 percent of 120 billion pieces of packaging go unrecycled every year,” Sarah points out. But that’s beginning to change. “Brands like PolyTag allow you to track your material through the system. And we’re seeing shifts to recyclable, refillable, waterless formats, all aiming for waste-free, but without sacrificing desire.”
The future may be uncertain, but one thing is clear: it will be designed. The question is not whether we shape it, but how and how well we understand the people, pressures and possibilities that define it.
At London Packaging Week, taking place on 15 & 16 October, these conversations come to life, exploring how values are lived, not labelled, how systems serve both planet and person and how innovation can be beautiful as well as brave.
Because when these elements align, the future won’t just arrive. It will belong.
