Sustainable packaging: How do we get there?

Many trends affect packaging on an ongoing basis, including micro- and macroeconomic challenges and consumer preferences. The growth of e-commerce and changing technology have led to demand for new types of packaging and the ability to incorporate new elements, such as QR codes, radio frequency identification (RFIDs), augmented reality and other digital and artificial intelligence-driven solutions.

However, many sources agree that making packaging more sustainable is the single most dominant trend.

Sustainability is a frequently heard term, but what does it really mean?

The root word is “sustain,” which means to last over time. The United Nations began to talk about sustainability in the late 1980s, and the concept became more widespread after that. In the broadest sense, sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. Sustainability includes social, economic and environmental components, but business and policy  focus most often on the environment.

The core of the sustainability discussion is the goal of reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) that could affect climate change. A “carbon footprint” is the amount of GHG associated with all stages of the life cycle of a specific product or service, such as packaging.

A number of questions might be asked to determine the sustainability of a package:

• What are the environmental impacts associated with every stage in the package’s lifecycle?
• Are supply chain partners committed to sustainable manufacturing and logistics?
• Is the packaging safe and healthy for the workers and communities involved?
• Does the package minimize the use of materials?
• Does the package incorporate recycled content?
• Is the package recyclable in the markets where the product is available?
• Can the package be reused or refilled?
• Is it biodegradable or compostable?

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a complex analysis that can be used to determine the carbon footprint of a package based on all variables in the package’s life cycle, from its suppliers through to its transportation to markets. It begins with an inventory of the inputs and outputs from the raw materials used and energy consumption through its end of life. The environmental impact of all inputs and outputs identified then are assessed in terms of negative impacts, such as water pollution or biodiversity loss. In the final analysis, areas for improvement are identified, and recommendations for developing a more sustainable package are outlined.

If the resources are not available to conduct a full LCA of a package or line of packaging, evaluating variables that affect end of life are a good place to start. Recycled content, material reduction, recyclability, reuse and compostability are familiar terms and relevant measures to assess.

Recycled content

One of the most significant benefits of using postconsumer recycled (PCR) content in packaging is that it greatly reduces carbon emissions. Using PCR can help manufacturers meet their carbon-reduction targets while conserving global resources.

PCR often is linked to a circular economy that minimizes waste through continual reuse and recycling, keeping materials in use as long as possible, in contrast to the traditional linear economy where products are made, used and disposed.

Throughout 2018 and2019, many of the largest food, beverage and personal care brand owners, such as Unilever, Nestle and L’Oreal, announced new goals to reduce their use of virgin plastic and increase PCR content by 2025 or 2030.

Material reduction

Using less material in packaging is an obvious method to reduce carbon footprint.

Lightweighting is a strategy that involves reducing the weight of the package while maintaining its performance and functionality. Lightweighting has been evident in many food and beverage categories for many years—think of the gradual reduction in weight of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) beverage bottles and soda cans. The process can be applied to all substrates: paper, plastic metal and glass. London-based multinational beverage company Diageo, for example, recently unveiled Johnnie Walker scotch in a new teardrop-shaped bottle instead of the traditional square shape, significantly reducing the weight of the glass.

Lightweighting can involve using thinner materials, incorporating different materials or redesigning the packaging structure to optimize its strength-to-weight ratio. It typically will reduce material and transportation costs and improve sustainability for the manufacturer. It also could improve convenience for the consumer given easier portability.

Businesses also can meet regulatory requirements on waste and emissions by employing lightweighting in their packaging. However, ackaging designers are cautioned to ensure lightweighting does not reduce product protection, increase complexity in production or undermine brand standards and image.

While lightweighting is a long-used strategy, it is not the only means of reducing packaging volume.

New brands and retailers are emerging—United Kingdom-based cosmetics retailer Lush, for example—that sell products such as shampoo and soap bars with no packaging. Amazon’s Ship-in-Product-Packaging program allows eligible items to be delivered in product packaging without shipping packaging to reduce material use and transportation weight.

Recycling

When consumers are asked about sustainable packaging, the first activity that comes to mind is recycling.

Residential recycling began to grow rapidly in the United States in the mid-1980s because of a shortage of landfill capacity and increasing costs, particularly in the Northeast. By the ’90s, some states had mandatory residential recycling, and bans on landfilling items such as hazardous waste, tires, appliances and the like proliferated.

By the early 2000s, the expansion of residential recycling programs led to pressure to simplify and reduce collection costs. Programs moved to the single-stream, one-bin approach from multiple bins, which greatly increased contamination, a problem still being addressed. However, by this time, the volume of material going to landfills declined, disposal costs moderated and lack of disposal capacity no longer drove residential recycling.

Since the turtle with a straw video went viral in 2015, consumer interest in sustainability has grown rapidly. In addition to goals to increase recycled content, major brand owners such as Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, PepsiCo and others have announced goals to ensure 100 percent of their packaging is readily recyclable, reusable or compostable.

To help packaging designers move in the right direction and improve packaging recyclability, many design guides from several Washington-based groups, such as the American Forest & Paper Association’s “Design Guidance for Recyclability” (2021), have been published. The Recycled Materials Association (ReMA) last year launched the ReMA Fiber Recycling Readiness Tool, while The Recycling Partnership offers an online Circular Packaging Assessment Tool that are calculators that estimate how recyclable a package is based on responses to a series of descriptive questions.  

Reuse

Reusable packaging is much more challenging than addressing recyclability because it requires a major shift in distribution systems and consumption patterns.

Different business-to-consumer reuse models include refilling a package at home or at a retail location or returning a package to be cleaned and refilled via e-commerce or at a retail location.

A 2023 progress report on brand owner goals from the United Kingdom-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation shows  limited use of reusable packaging. Among the 300 companies included in its report, which covers the year 2022, an average of 1.2 percent of plastic packaging was reusable and more than half of participants reported no reusable packaging at all.

The Charlottesville, Virginia-based Sustainable Packaging Coalition points out that the best categories for reusable packaging are items that are used and purchased at retail (where the consumer will revisit) or e-commerce.

Companies might need to collaborate, align on the best categories for reuse and standardize reusable packaging so costs can be shared and efficiencies of scale created.

Biodegradable and compostable

While all compostable packaging is biodegradable, the reverse is not true. The term “biodegradable” does not imply a specific time frame or process, while “compostable” does.

Compostable packaging has great potential to divert food waste from landfills and reduce GHG emissions, but the sector is in the early stages of development in the U.S.

Consumers have difficulty distinguishing between compostable and biodegradable, and many don’t understand the difference between industrial and home composting.

As the Composting Consortium at New York-based Closed Loop Partners points out, most composting facilities that process food waste do not want compostable packaging because it degrades at a different rate. It also  is difficult to tell what the packaging is made of. Access also is limited, with only 13 percent of households having access to curbside organics collection and 7 percent having access to compostable packaging collection.

This overview of sustainable packaging indicates that metrics are available to assess the current sustainability of package types and to determine where to improve.

Activities such as recycling and lightweighting have a long history, while increasing use of recycled content has begun to take off. Some alternatives, such as reusable packaging and widespread access to composting, still are in the early stages and will need infrastructure and consumer behavioral change before the benefits can be widespread.

The author is principal consultant at Atlanta-based Insight + Action. For more information, visit https://insightplusaction.net.