Sustainable packaging

Sustainable packaging offers maximum functionality with the best product protection, causes minimal ecological damage and is as circular as possible. The circularity of packaging is becoming increasingly urgent as the European Union calls for a reduction in resource use, reuse of products and packaging and higher material recycling quotas. In addition, it is encouraging the use of recycled material as a secondary raw material.

Balancing functionality and externalities in packaging systems

Packaging plays a key role in the life cycle of products and materials placed on the market. From a life cycle analysis perspective, packaging is considered to be any packaging system that fulfils a function during the storage, distribution, sale and use of the product. A packaging system can offer multiple functionalities such as maintaining and protecting the qualities of the product, ensuring its effective use, offering protection during transport, providing information or even attracting potential buyers at the point-of-sale shelf.

For some time now, the focus has been on the negative externalities arising from the life cycles of packaging systems, especially the environmental impacts of packaging waste and the waste of resources associated with a low circularity index (e.g. non-reusable, non-recyclable packaging with no recycled content).

Extended producer responsibility urges manufacturers to take responsibility for the impacts arising from the use of packaging and its final waste, for all levels of packaging, primary, secondary and tertiary. This is why manufacturers and packagers should environmentally assess their packaging systems and try to design systems with environmental sustainability in mind.

Assessing the sustainability of packaging through Life Cycle Analysis

At Zirkel we accompany companies in the environmental assessment by means of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This methodology assesses the environmental impact of a product or service throughout all stages of its life cycle, from the extraction and processing of raw materials to its end-of-life. The LCA provides a detailed overview of GHG emissions, water and energy consumption and waste generation throughout the life cycle of the packaging. Through the application of an LCA, different design options can be environmentally assessed, for example:

• Environmental assessment of different materials used.
• Quantification of the impact improvement resulting from a reduction in the weight of the materials.
• Environmental improvement associated with the implementation of a packaging recovery and reuse system.
• Impact of incorporating recycled and/or recyclable materials
• Comparison of the environmental footprint of different packaging designs for the same product.

LCA allows different scenarios and alternatives to be evaluated, allowing different options to be compared and the most sustainable environmental solution to be found.

The imperative of a systems approach to packaging sustainability analysis

Due to the dependency link between a product and its packaging, it is necessary to consider how a change in packaging will affect the various dimensions of the product. This can affect the quality and durability of the product or even the purchasing decision of the purchaser. All these aspects must be included in the study of a packaging system in order to avoid the transfer of environmental burdens to other parts of the system. Let us look at two examples:

1. The use of a more sustainable material may lead to less product protection, and this may increase food waste in the logistics chain or in the consumer's home. If a packaging LCA only considers the materials phase and ignores the impact on the durability of the product, it could be missing a transfer of impacts associated with an increase in food waste.
2. Another example is the case of reuse. The use of reusable packaging avoids the extraction and processing of new materials, amortising the original product or material over multiple uses. However, these systems often include impacts from transport (return to refill point) and maintenance (cleaning). An LCA assessment with a systemic approach will allow to include all the impacts added by the use of a reusable packaging and to obtain a comparison of two systems after several uses, being able to really see if the new system is more sustainable in the long term.

The linear model on which production and consumption systems are based is responsible for serious externalities that affect the environment, from greenhouse gas emissions to the depletion of resources and the degradation of biodiversity. Incorporating the environmental perspective into the design of packaging systems, applying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, for example, will allow us to redirect these impacts and improve the sustainability of the products we consume.