Karli Verghese

Environmental innovation in industrial packaging: a supply chain approach

Community concerns about the environmental impacts of packaging have prompted governments to introduce policies and regulations which impose eco-taxes or deposit-return systems, require companies to take-back and recover their packaging, or promote voluntary product stewardship programmes. Until recently these programmes have focused almost exclusively on consumer (retail) packaging, but increasingly companies are starting to address the environmental impacts of industrial packaging. This is being driven as much by regulation as it is by the need to reduce costs and increase efficiency in supply chains. This paper argues that environmental innovation in industrial packaging systems requires a cooperative supply chain approach to ensure that environmental and commercial costs are reduced and efficiencies optimized for the chain as a whole. This is based on a review of the literature and an industrial packaging supply chain research and demonstration programme conducted between 2003 and 2005 in Australia.

Packaging for sustainability

Provides a concise and readable handbook for practitioners who are trying to implement sustainability strategies for packaging Draws on the expertise of researchers and industry practitioners to provide information on business benefits and environmental issues Includes industry case studies The packaging industry is under pressure from regulators, customers and other stakeholders to improve packaging’s sustainability by reducing its environmental and societal impacts. This is a considerable challenge because of the complex interactions between products and their packaging, and the many roles that packaging plays in the supply chain. Packaging for Sustainability is a concise and readable handbook for practitioners who are trying to implement sustainability strategies for packaging. Industry case studies are used throughout the book to illustrate possible applications and scenarios. Packaging for Sustainability draws on the expertise of researchers and industry practitioners to provide information on business benefits, environmental issues and priorities, environmental evaluation tools, design for environment, marketing strategies, and challenges for the future. Authors: Dr. Karli Verghese and Dr. Helen Lewis, Centre for Design, RMIT University; Dr Leanne Fitzpatrick, Birubi Innovation, Melbourne.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of food and beverage packaging

Emerging food packaging technologies are promising packaging innovations that can provide competitive advantages to improve the food distribution system. A food packaging innovation may be advanced to become an emerging technology if its developers can apply sound science in a creative and cost-effective manner to fulfill some import and timely socioeconomic needs such as improving food safety and security. The successful development and commercialization or emerging technologies often requires thinking inside and outside the box, developing innovative approaches and solutions to address specific needs and integrating them smoothly and effectively into the existing system. To develop breakthrough packaging technologies, multidisciplinary teams with expertise, not only in packaging science and engineering, but also in disciplines such as food engineering, information techno logy, nanotechnology, and socio-economics are often needed.

Environmental assessment of food packaging and advanced methods for choosing the correct materials.

Publisher Summary The consumers increasingly demand food that is healthy, convenient, and quick to prepare; thus, the selection of appropriate packaging materials to ensure that the foods nutritional value and shelf-life are maintained is becoming complex. Not only does the packaging development team need to ensure compatibility between product and packaging materials, required shelf-life, production line efficiency and cost, but they also need to consider the environmental impacts associated with the selection, use, and post-consumer waste management of the discarded packaging system. The approaches range from bans or taxes on particular materials through to voluntary programs. Therefore, the decisions about which packaging materials to select would be influenced to some degree by the policy approach in a particular country. In response to the increasing concerns and the needs of industry to balance the functional requirements of packaging materials with the environmental burdens of their production, use and post-consumer waste management, several international collaborative partnerships are leading the way in the debate on what constitutes sustainable packaging.

Developing the Strategy

The commercial operating environment is increasingly demanding more sustainable products and improved environmental performance. How a business responds to this demand should be embedded within its corporate strategy. For many years, packaging has been at centre stage in political and consumer campaigns to address environmental issues. Packaging does generate environmental impacts in all stages of its life cycle however these cannot be isolated from the impacts of the product it protects. Packaging’s role in the corporate strategy should be clearly identified, by understanding the environmental life cycle of products and their packaging and relevant current or emerging environmental regulations. Packaging sustainability initiatives should optimise the product-packaging system and reduce specific environmental impacts including those of the packaging itself. This chapter outlines issues to consider in constructing the business case for investing in packaging for sustainability and, setting goals and targets for packaging’s contribution to a business’s more general sustainable development goals.

Selecting and Applying Tools

Many tools to support design for sustainability are now available. This chapter provides a general overview of tools commonly used in packaging design and examples of their application.

Applying Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle assessment (commonly known by its acronym LCA) is a useful sustainability tool and has many applications to support packaging decisions. In LCA, environmental impacts of product and packaging systems can be quantified in line with internationally accepted methodologies. With this knowledge, strategies can be identified and adopted that achieve the most effective and efficient environmental outcomes, and packaging design can be optimised. This chapter provides a general introduction to understanding and getting started with LCA, in particular for its application to product-packaging and packaging-system design. One important insight is that LCA studies have the potential to dispel common myths about packaging and sustainability issues. Packaging LCAs sometimes show that ‘rules of thumb’ or ‘common sense solutions’ simply do not apply or work in practice.