Sustainable packaging: threat or opportunity?

 

January 2010

 

Under constant pressure from government, the media, customers and consumers, the packaging industry is increasingly being forced to consider how its products can be made more sustainable. Faced with pressing issues of over capacity, low prices and high raw material costs, should 'sustainable packaging' be a top concern for packaging senior executives? Will the issue have any real, lasting impact on how the industry does business, and how will packaging shape up?

 

A selection of key findings and recommendations:

 

For the industry

 

In order to influence the developing agenda, the packaging industry needs to become more proactive and develop a consensus on what actually constitutes 'sustainable packaging' and how the sustainability of packaging should be measured

 

The industry also needs to articulate more clearly to regulators, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and consumers its often relatively modest contribution to the overall environmental footprint of a delivered product, and the success that the industry has already had in reducing the environmental impact of packaging.

 

For management

 

Immediately review your customer base to understand which of them have made public announcements on their commitment to sustainability and begin talking to them about what their pronouncements mean in practise for their packaging needs.

 

From your common understanding agree with your customers what criteria (e.g. carbon footprint, energy usage, waste etc) you could monitor and report to them to demonstrate your ongoing improvements on the sustainability of their packaging

 

Work in collaboration, up and down the value chain, and use techniques such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) or environmental input-output analysis to identify value chain hotspots. Consider whether it is commercially advantageous to you or your customers to work with other players in the value chain to address these hotspots and improve the overall sustainability of a product. Be sure that you can quantify any improvement for your customer.