Sustainability: retailer and end-user considerations

Despite the 2009 UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen being hailed somewhat as a failure, global consumer-facing business leaders, national governments, NGOs and even modern consumers – with the help of social media – have become acutely aware of the true impact of the meeting, and the swift global pressure to move to a lower carbon economy within five years.

Product packaging and distribution is one of the main areas identified at the high-pressure meeting as having a large footprint across the global supply chain, since it’s what keeps all traded goods and products intact through extraction, manufacture, distribution and sale.

The world’s largest brand owners, who rely heavily on transportation to reach their customers, are seriously evaluating their supply chain to find areas where energy, waste and carbon emissions can be cut quickly. Peter Lacy, head of sustainability for Accenture, a global management consulting firm, posted his evaluation of the Summit on www.businessweek.com, highlighting the participation of Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, and Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca-Cola.

Lacy reports that Muhtar Kent said, ‘We believe there will be massive innovation at the interface of supply chains and sustainability; we believe the supply chain can be a massive source of competitive advantage in a re-set world.’

So what does this mean to a label converter or package printer? The wider packaging industry has understood that it needs to have sufficient coordination of sustainability actions by each value chain stakeholder and a common set of, or harmonized, standards, to streamline the flow of materials, improving supply chain communication and automation, so as to avoid confusion, redundancy and potential inefficiencies.

Europen discussed Life cycle Assessment (LCA) as an approach to evaluating packaging and its impact on the environment as far back as 1998. Global retailers, CPCs and their suppliers continue to respect the importance of a life cycle approach today and hope to establish more closed loop packaging systems amongst trading communities.

This implies that the industry can expect a call for an LCA of a label's construction, no matter which type of product decoration – PS, shrink, glue applied, etc – or printing process used. A key point of a label’s LCA is going to be its recyclability with various product packaging materials, and it's compatibility with current and up-and-coming recycling infrastructures. High recovery rates for the industry’s solid waste, in all markets of the world, would greatly reduce its environmental footprint within the supply chain.

This chapter gives a detailed look at actions taken by the greater packaging industry when it comes to ‘sustainable packaging’ in an effort to forecast what the label and package print industry can expect in the coming years. Readers will notice that despite there being myriad groups and seemingly multiple standards, all parties are working together towards a common goal. At the end of the chapter there is an outline for an Environmental Management Supply Chain system, or supplier sustainability matrix, which can be used as a model to create a customized supplier evaluation system to work within any converting operation.

GLOBAL PACKAGING STANDARDS

ISO Sustainable Packaging Standards - In early December 2009, Stockholm, Sweden welcomed around 70 packaging representatives to meet with ISO leaders to lay the groundwork for international sustainable packaging standards. Representatives attended from the US, China, Japan, Korea and eleven European countries.

ISO created a sub-committee, SC4 Packaging and the Environment, under the ISO Technical Committee 122, which is responsible for all standards related to packaging (ISO TC 122/SC4). SC4 has been working closely with ISO TC 207, which is responsible for the development of ISO environment related standards. The Twinned Secretariats are the Swedish Standards Institute and the Standardization Administration of China.

Anders Linde, executive director of AliaXion AB, an international management consultant, will serve as chairperson until the end of 2015. Linde is a past chairman of Europen and INCPEN and the Europen Internal Market Committee, and is current chairman of the CEN Committee on material recycling of used packaging and the CEN Committee on LCA for packaging.

Currently there are twenty countries participating in the ISO TC 122/SC4 directive, including Argentina, Belgium, Jordan, Kenya, India, Thailand and Korea.

It was anticipated that the ISO TC 122/SC4 standards would be based on existing European packaging and environment standards developed by CEN (European Committee for Standardization). The CEN standards are linked to the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and the Asian guidelines for environmentally conscious packaging.

This development holds some serious implications for North American label and packaging manufacturers that are not familiar with the more ISO SC4 packaging and the environment expected standards will be covered by a seventh ‘umbrella standard’ setting out requirements for their use.

Delegates met at subsequent international meetings, in Beijing (2010) and Tokyo (2011) and announced in Atlanta in May 2011 that the ISO SC4 group had adopted the draft international standard stringent standards found in Europe. 

Reports said ISO proposed that six standards be developed dealing respectively with source reduction, reuse, recycling, energy recovery, chemical recovery, composting and biodegradation. These six standards (DIS). It will test the DIS over the next year. Final approval is expected by the second quarter of 2012.

Europen

The European Organization for Packaging and the Environment (Europen), a pan-European industry and trade association with an economic interest in packaging and packaged products, is enthusiastic about the ISO development. Its members, including MeadWestVaco, P&G, Coca-Cola, Mondi Packaging, DuPont, Exxon Mobil and Sealed Air, believe that a benchmark is needed without delay in order to create a more ‘globally harmonized approach’ to reducing the environmental impact of packaging.

Julian Carroll, Europen managing director, says: ‘Adoption of global standards on packaging and the environment will provide a foundation reference point for any regional or local initiatives – either from the public or corporate sector – aimed at addressing environmental concerns about packaging. We are witnessing a rapid growth in the number of such initiatives, particularly outside Europe. Sometimes their goals are contrary to each other and occasionally they don’t make any environmental sense. 

’The proposed ISO standards could become a much needed benchmark for any proposed regional, national or even local packaging regulation.’

Ameripen

Many of the international companies that are Europen members helped its US-based counterparts to form the environmental packaging lobby group Ameripen in spring 2011. Much like Europen, The American Institution for Packaging and the Environment, is an industry and trade organization with an economic interest in packaging and packaged products.

Both Europen and Ameripen promote science-based decision making, but not necessarily LCA only, in order to advocate for more sustainable production, distribution and consumption, and will work to shape public policy and support education and outreach.

Ameripen founding members group hosted its first members meeting in June 2011:

• The Coca Cola Company

• Colgate-Palmolive Company 

• ConAgra Foods 

• The Dow Chemical Co.

• DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers 

• Kellogg Company

• MeadWestvaco (MWV)

• Procter & Gamble

• Sealed Air Corporation

• Tetra Pak

EN13432 Packaging Standard - biodegradable and compostable The standard ‘EN 13432 Packaging: requirements for packaging recoverable through composting and biodegradation’ was enacted in 2000 in line with the EU Directive on Packaging and Packaging waste (94/62/EC). Many national standards bodies of EU member states have adopted it; for example in the UK it is known as BS EN 13432 under the British Standard Institution.

Packaging and products certified to BS EN 13432 are considered acceptable material for commercial composting and are in compliance with BSI PAS 100 and the Quality Compost Protocol. Final acceptance is based on these factors: packaging, packaging materials, recycling, waste handling, composting (waste), waste disposal, waste recovery, biodegradable materials, biodegradability, degradation, chemical composition, toxic materials, performance testing, conformity, acceptance (approval), biological analysis and testing.

BRC/IOP Packaging Standard – food safety - The British Retail Consortium (BRC) addressed food safety issues in the UK with the BRC Global Standard for Food in 1998, which requires all retailers to take every precaution necessary to ensure the safety of consumers with regards to the manufacture, distribution, advertisement and sale of food products.

In reaction, the BRC subsequently enacted a standard auditing system for packaging companies in conjunction with the Institute of Packaging (IOP) in October 2001. The BRC/IOP Global Standard is designed to assess the ability of packaging manufacturers to comply with food safety requirements and demonstrate due diligence. The BRC/IOP packaging standard operates at two levels to allow its use for both food contact and non-contact packaging materials.

The principal requirements of the BRC/IOP Global Standard are the adoption of risk assessment, a quality management system and quality control, factory environmental standards and personnel achievement schemes. Certification to the BRC/IOP packaging standard is now a fundamental requirement of many leading food retailers and manufacturers such as Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Safeway and Tesco.

Converters and packagers certified to the BRC/IOP Packaging Standard for food can use many of the same tracking and documentation methods, along with the supplier sustainability matrix at the end of the chapter, to develop a custom Environmental Management Supply Chain system.

STANDARDIZING TERMINOLOGY

Sustainable Packaging Coalition - The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) is a membership-based, cross-industry group of supply chain stakeholders that work together on a variety of projects, sharing strengths and proficiencies to establish closed-loop package manufacturing systems. The SPC is a project of US-based GreenBlue, a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization committed to sustainability. It is directed by a nine-member executive committee and provides technical and administrative support to the SPC.

A number of label converters, package printers and their suppliers are SPC members, including Fort Dearborn, Multi-Color Corporation, AET Films, Avery Dennison, International Paper, EskoArtwork, INX International, Klockner Pentaplast, Innovia, ExxonMobil, BASF, DuPont and Dow Chemical.

Other members include Procter & Gamble, Bemis, Marks & Spencer, Nike, ConAgra, Estee Lauder, Starbucks, Target, Unilever, Amcor, Sara Lee, SC Johnson, SAB Miller and General Mills. Michigan State University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Western Michigan State University are also members.

In its first step towards creating an infrastructure to facilitate true closed-loop package manufacturing chains, the SPC completed version 1.0 of the Definition of Sustainable Packaging in 2005. This definition represented an important first step in articulating a common understanding of the term ‘sustainable packaging’.

The SPC’s definition of sustainable packaging consists of eight elements:

• Beneficial, safe and healthy for individuals and communities throughout its life cycle

• Meets market criteria for both performance and cost

• Is sourced, manufactured, transported, and recycled using renewable energy    

• Optimizes the use of renewable or recycled source materials

• Manufactured using clean production technologies and best practices  

• Made from materials healthy in all probable end-of-life scenarios    

• Physically designed to optimize materials and energy

• Effectively recovered and utilized in biological and/or industrial closed-loop cycles

SPC’s definition has been widely adopted throughout the packaging industry.

This widespread adoption has given the group the strength to move forward with creating workable international standards and systems that streamline the supply chain with common language.

The SPC undertook what it calls the Framework Project, for its members to:

• Use as a tool to track its internal environmental efforts

• Use as a guide for implementing environmental criteria that meet SPC’s definition of sustainable packaging

• Establish some standard terminology

After nearly two years of research and analysis of over fifty established metric systems and collaboration with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and adherence to FTC’s Green Guides definitions, the SPC released its Sustainable Packaging Indicators and Metrics Framework Version 1.0 to members in April of 2009, opening to the public in December 2009.

Ann Bedarf, project manager for the Framework Project, says, ‘It has helped companies measure progress towards the SPC definition of sustainable packaging and the metrics framework will standardize how the industry measures its progress toward making packaging more sustainable.’

Global Packaging Project - The Global Packaging Project (GPP) is an initiative of the Consumer Goods Forum that seeks to standardize measurements for supplier packaging sustainability to be used by brand owners and retailers. The Consumer Goods Forum was created in June 2009 by the merger of the International Committee of Food Retail Chains (CIES), the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) and the Global CEO Forum. The group is governed by a board of directors.

Retailers and product manufacturers established the GPP to find a common way of measuring environmental and sustainability improvements on packaging for cross-border, multi-level use, comprehension and effectiveness. The directors of sustainability, quality and packaging at Kraft Foods and Tesco served as the group’s founding chairmen.

The CEOs of Carrefour and Coca-Cola are currently chairing.

One of the key principles identified by GPP was that the sustainability of packaging cannot be measured in a single metric, for example energy reduction or solid waste. The group also agrees that the metrics used to measure sustainability need to be based on life cycle.

Under the guidance of The European Brands Association (AIM), CIES, the GMA and the Food Marketing Institute, a working group of member company representatives developed definitions and common principles for metrics used to measure the sustainability of packaging: A Global Language for Packaging and Sustainability: A framework and a measurement system for our industry. The GPP agreed on a common set of definitions and principles for sustainable packaging.

Key founding participants include:

• Tesco

• Kraft Foods

• Unilever

• Europen

• Quantis

• SPC

• Unilever

• Nestlé

• DuPont

• GMA 

• Sobey’s

• Henkel

• GS1

• FMI 

• Walmart

• GreenBlue

• Procter & Gamble

• The Consumer Goods Forum

• Rochester Institute of Technology

ONE GLOBAL STANDARD

The SPC’s Framework guidelines serve more as an internal evaluation system for companies using whatever measurement units work best within their specific business to meet their definition for sustainable packaging. The GPP is more concerned with harmonizing the specific metrics, i.e. unit per volume or unit per weight, so that retailers and their suppliers are speaking the same ’green‘ economy language when moving products around the globe. It’s reviewing which units will be the best for standard measurement.

GPP’s definitions and principles reflect the unified guidelines on packaging and sustainability produced by ECR Europe, Europen, the GMA and the Metrics Framework introduced by the SPC. 

Pilot testing of the GPP metrics began in the first half of 2010. The group is to release a report by the end of 2011 that details the implications and usability of the Global Language in real-world business environments.

The SPC has followed the GPP’s pilot testing process closely over the last year and plans to incorporate feedback into a Version 2.0 of the Metrics Framework in 2012, so that any indicator and metrics common to GPP will be compatible and consistent in terms of language, data request and collection guidelines and referenced measurement standards and protocols. GreenBlue has two seats on the board of GPP.

These collaborative efforts will enhance the consistent, effective assessment of the environmental, social and economic characteristics of packaging in the context of sustainability.

While the SPC metrics and guidelines do not specifically address labels and their construction as of yet, GreenBlue advisors say that they are collecting information on secondary packaging materials now to create a prioritized list to include this information for its members.

Pressure sensitive labels and their multi-layer constructions, and shrink sleeve labels, specifically the energy used to apply the decoration to a container, will be top on the list. The industry can anticipate momentum to pick up towards the beginning of 2013.

SUPPLIER SUSTAINABILITY SCORECARD PROGRAMS

Walmart Packaging Scorecard - Wal-Mart Stores Inc rolled out its Packaging Scorecard with sustainability metrics in September 2006. The company explained that the main purpose of the scorecard was to help reach its goal to reduce packaging across its global supply chain by five percent by 2013.

The Walmart Packaging Scorecard metrics are measured as follows for a total of 100 percent:

• 15 percent GHG emissions

• 15 percent material value

• 15 percent product/package ratio

• 15 percent cube utilization

• 10 percent transportation

• 10 percent recycled content

• 10 percent recovery value

• 5 percent renewable energy

• 5 percent innovation

Initially the scorecard was made available only to a few thousand private label suppliers, but eventually the program was shared with over 60,000 suppliers in February 2007 for a one-year trial period. In February 2008 Walmart officially launched the Packaging Scorecard, allowing its US buyers to use the metrics to influence their purchasing decisions. The retailer’s influential scorecard has since been rolled out in Canada and Mexico.

The plan has proved to help reduce waste in the first place, and divert it from its typical disposal in a landfill or by incineration. The company claims it redirected 64 percent of its solid waste from going into landfills between 2009 and 2010.

Still, the retailer has its work cut-out to achieve its bold sustainability goals to;

• Be zero waste by 2025

• Be packaging neutral by 2025

• Be supplied by 100 percent renewable energy

• Sell more sustainable products

After seeing the environmental and cost saving possibilities found with a coherent and realistic supplier database, Walmart quickly announced that it was creating a Supplier Sustainability Assessment program to:

• Increase transparency in the supply chain

• Establish one master database for the evaluation of a product’s sustainability

• Drive product innovation

• Provide customers with information needed to effectively evaluate and select products by environmental impact

Walmart Sustainability Index - The Walmart Sustainability Index was introduced in July 2009, starting with the release of a brief survey of 15 questions extended to more than 100,000 of its global suppliers to evaluate their own companies’ environmental footprint. The questions focus on four areas: energy and climate; material efficiency; natural resources; and people and community, touching on water consumption and solid material waste.

For this reason, label converters too must evaluate the materials they require for production across a ‘sustainability scorecard’, review their own suppliers with environmental scrutiny, and measure their operation’s environmental footprint using globally standardized tools like the new GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard.

Walmart maintains a number of what it calls Sustainable Value Networks (SVNs) to empower regular communication and collaboration with NGOs, its suppliers, engineers and university leaders to develop new solutions to help it achieve these environmental initiatives and more.

The Sustainable Value Networks (SVNs) are: greenhouse gas; sustainable facilities; logistics; waste; packaging; wood and paper; agriculture and seafood; textiles, jewelry and chemical intensive products.

With the calling for evaluation of Recycle Compatible Adhesives for labels used on PET plastic containers in Canada and the US, supplier scorecards will continue to dig deeper, looking for more transparency and demanding third-party verification of a label’s life cycle impact and recycle compatibility with the container it’s applied to.

Procter & Gamble Supplier Environmental Sustainability Scorecard - Procter & Gamble introduced its supplier scorecard to about 400 suppliers initially in the US in the spring of 2010. Paul Baier, VP of sustainability consulting at Groom Energy, describes the manufacturer’s program as clear and simple like retailer Walmart’s, but points out some differences.

*‘P&G’s program is performance based (actual results per output units) and explicitly focused on yearly supplier improvement, whereas the Walmart effort is goal orientated. Walmart asks for information on sourcing policies, third party certifications and community involvement, while P&G does not.’ *posted on GreenBiz.com July 2010.

P&G’s three goals surrounding sustainability are:

• Enhance supply chain collaboration

• Improve key environmental indicators

• Encourage the sharing of ideas and capability to deliver more sustainable products and services for its consumers

The scorecard was employed to assess the overall environmental footprint of its suppliers, and will encourage improvements in energy and water usage, waste disposal and GHG emissions with annual measurements. The 2011 scorecard was updated to reflect best practices learned from the first year’s use.

L’Oréal PIQET - L’Oréal USA introduced its Sustainable Packaging Scorecard to evaluate the life cycle sustainability of product packaging in May 2011. Now all new products undergo a packaging assessment using seven criteria including PIQET: use of bio-plastics, recycled materials, certified paperboard, light-weighting techniques; PVC-free, packaging volume and primary packaging size. As a streamlined tool, PIQET is commonly used to identify and prioritize investment in full life cycle assessment studies.

PIQET (Packaging Impact Quick Evaluation Tool) is a web-based life cycle analysis tool for product packaging developed by the Sustainable Packaging Alliance based in Sydney, Australia, to give packaging designers and manufacturers the ability to identify, review and reduce the environmental impact of packaging at the critical design stage.

Avery Dennison Greenprint - Avery Dennison Greenprint is a user-friendly way to communicate a product’s environmental footprint across different stages of its life cycle. The tool provides environmental impact data across six categories (fossil material, trees, water, energy, greenhouse gases and waste) and allows product managers, technicians and designers to quickly assess design and material options based on environmental impact. 

Avery Dennison Greenprint enables brand owners and customers to tangibly understand the environmental consequences of their packaging and product choices and provides quantifiable support for ‘eco’ marketing claims. It was first used in 2010 by the company's Retail Branding and Information Solutions (RBIS) group, which is  one of the key global players in the production of point of sale labels and tags for top US and European retailers, and many of the world’s leading apparel brands.

Several of Avery Dennison’s specialty materials businesses have used Avery Dennison Greenprint, and the company is further refining it for wide use with label and packaging materials.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, DATA COLLECTION

Life cycle Assessment (LCA) traces its origins to the 1960s as people began realizing that the earth’s resources are not limitless. Coca-Cola can be attributed with conducting the first LCA on its product packaging in 1969 when it wanted to evaluate beverage containers to find which design had the least impact on the environment and the supply chain. Europen first discussed LCA in 1998 and has published a number of research papers surround life cycles for packaging since then. The International Standards Organization (ISO) developed LCA standards in the 14000 series from 1997 through 2002.

Europen agrees that LCA should be used as a decision-supporting tool rather than a decision-making tool. In the 21st century, the global packaging community generally believes that LCA brings value to environmental impact actions and is therefore collaborating to achieve a common index to streamline product and packaging evaluation to optimize supply chain flexibility and delivery, thereby reducing the industry’s carbon footprint.

The Sustainability Consortium - The only true way to develop an effective database of information on the life cycle of products is through collaborative and practical research. The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) is an independent group of scientists and engineers from leading academic research institutions around the world who are developing the science to support the indexing of consumer products throughout all phases of a product’s life. The TSC engages with leading researchers from the NGO, government and related industry sectors.

While Walmart provided the initial funding for TSC, it has actively encouraged other retailers and suppliers to participate so that the index may be used effectively industry-wide. Researchers are using best practices and information from the plethora of certification guidelines and LCA data surrounding products’ environmental impacts.

Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas jointly administer the consortium. Its co-directors are Dr Jay Golden, Arizona State University (ASU) School of Sustainability, and Dr Jon Johnson, University of Arkansas (UA) Sam M. Walton School of Business. Once the LCA data is collected, tested and an index is made available, retailers, packagers and likely label converters will be able to use the program to adapt their own certification schemes around trialed data.

Initial TSC Meeting Attendees March 2009:

Earthster TSC plans to develop this product LCA data tool using Earthster, a free, open-source/web-based sustainable information platform. Earthster was created by Greg Norris, director at Sylvatica, an international life cycle assessment institute, which consults on LCA to the UN, US and foreign governments, and a variety of corporations, industry associations, small firms and non-profit groups. Earthster’s founding partners include: Walmart, Seventh Generation, Per Consulting, Tetra Pak, the US EPA, Caterpillar, Safeway, Stonefield Farm, The Sustainability Consortium, Georgia-Pacific, Product Ecology Consultants, Owens Corning, Frito Lay and Tyler Pipe.

Norris is a senior fellow for GreenBlue, providing LCA guidance to the SPC and its members. He also leads the development of the methods, modeling and software to implement LCA within the LEED sustainable building rating system.

Now in Beta, Earthster is described as a drag-and-drop system that allows users to easily compute their products’ LCA cost-effectively. The software allows users to benchmark internally across industry averages, and gives the option to report environmental and social attributes of their processes and products to other users without revealing proprietary information.

Norris is an advocate for the adoption of life cycle assessment systems (software, databases and methods) that will more accurately source environmental information giving businesses more reliability to improve their environmental impact, realize the benefits in doing so and therefore excel in the modern business world. Dr Johnson, UA, says that he’s hoping to progress Earthster to become the de facto standard tool for product LCA globally.

ASU’s Dr Golden says, ‘Currently, the consortium’s goals focus on enabling innovation in the business community, although future initiatives may include efforts around consumer education. The group wants to look at opportunities to communicate in new ways to consumers, but this will be a few years out.’

‘CURBING’ SUPPLY CHAIN IMPACT – CONSUMER EDUCATION

Reader’s Digest, translated into 20 languages with around 90 million global readers, published an article titled Eco-Check in its April 2009 edition which said, ‘Soon…we consumers will go from being helpless cogs in a vast machine to being a force that matters.’ The article went on to highlight various technologies by which consumers could find out the environmental impact of a product including websites and cell phone applications. P&G says that 80 percent of consumers tell them that sustainability is important.

Retailers and brand owners are working hard to educate the consumer, and they want to sell more sustainable products. Walmart, for example, has sold 92,000 blankets made from 16.5 million recycled water bottles collected at its Brazilian stores’ recycling centers.

The final step of the Walmart index, the TSC research and the Earthster database is to ‘provide consumers with product information in a simple, convenient, easy to understand manner so they can make choices and consume in a more sustainable way’.

How that information is delivered to consumers is still undetermined. But surely there is opportunity to be found in social media action programs utilizing mobile QR codes and smart tag systems that can be easily printed on any product’s label or packaging to give consumers information on-demand.

Mike Duke, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, says, ‘The index will bring about a more transparent supply chain, drive product innovation and, ultimately, provide consumers with the information they need to assess the sustainability of products. If we work together, we can create a new retail standard for the 21st century.’

BRC’s On-pack recycling (OPR) label In May 2009 The British Retail Consortium (BRC) launched an on-pack recycling label (OPRL) scheme that specifically tells the consumer which part of a package can be recycled. Retailers see that it is their job to educate customers about recycling to help improve recycling rates. As consumer knowledge expands and their understanding of Life cycle Assessment improves, so will their demands and their pressure for increased sustainability in products including packaging.

This OPRL scheme is supported by Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a not-for-profit company founded in 2000, backed by government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It assists UK governments at all levels to meet goals in advancing a ‘green’ economy; its work has been instrumental in helping the UK recycling and reprocessing sector to quadruple in size between 2000 and 2008.

Birdseye, Innocent, Henkel, AB InBev, Heinz, Boots, Heineken, Innocent, Kimberly Clark, Molson Coors, GlaxoSmithKline, Marks & Spencer and WH Smith are just some of the companies that have adopted the BRC OPRL scheme. The label now appears on more than 60,000 product lines.  

Over 90 percent of grocery retail in the UK by turnover has signed up and the group is working to encourage more retailers and brand owners in all areas including electronics, health and beauty, clothing and merchandising.

The ultimate goals are to make the label a standard throughout the UK for all consumer goods and to educate consumers about which parts of packaging can be recycled in their local area.

The BRC on-pack recycling label consists of three categories for educating consumers:

• Widely recycled – 65 percent

• Check local recycling – 15-65 percent

• Not currently recycled – >15 percent

The percentages denote the capability to recycle a particular packaging material within the consumer’s local region in the UK. (For the US market, the SPC Labeling for Recovery Project below chose to use 60 percent as a threshold because of the insufficient infrastructure for a number of materials.) The high rate drove the creation of some of the required systems. For example, the rapid advancement in the UK forced one packaging supplier, Tetra Pak, to create a recycling system for its materials because it did not want to be labeled as ‘not recyclable’.

In light of its rapid adoption, the BRC has recently shifted its focus towards raising public awareness of the label and encouraging consumers to recycle as much as possible. The collection gap, the difference between how much can be collected for recycling and how much is actually captured for recycling, is significant for several materials. Less than 50 percent of plastic bottles in the UK are captured for recycling.

Bob Gordon, the British Retail Consortium’s head of environment and OPRL director, says, ‘To begin we had just been trying to get buy-in from retailers and manufacturers, but the label now appears on enough products for us to refocus our energies toward raising public awareness and changing consumer behavior.’

The group highlights that society needs to ensure that more of what can be recycled actually goes into recycling schemes. For most closed-loop packaging schemes to become reality, consumer participation in proper recovery is key. The BRC is working with local authorities and community groups to raise awareness of the label and show the communal and direct benefits found in participating in recycling schemes. Consumers want to be empowered so they can make the right choices. This educational label empowers consumers.

SPC’s Labeling for Recovery Project - The SPC started its Labeling for Recovery Project (LRP) in May 2007 using the BRC’s OPRL scheme as a model to create a workable system in the US and Canada. Anne Bedarf, project manager, explains, ‘The ultimate goal of the project is to create a clear recyclability message for consumers through a widely accepted on-pack label.

‘Over the course of 2010, the SPC refined the label, collected data on recycling infrastructures and finalized the label system. The SPC wants to harmonize communication from the industry to the consumer. In order to achieve our goal, we must lower the consumer barriers to recycling and must improve the clarity of the message.’

The SPC system classifies four types of packaging:

• Widely recycled – glass, cardboard, PET bottles

• Limited recycling – materials recycled in 20-60 percent of US, i.e. polypropylene yogurt containers

• Not recycled – rarely recycled materials >20 percent i.e. Styrofoam

• Store drop-off – bags, plastic films, batteries, computers often collected by retailers for recycling

The rubrics used to create the system were: clear, universal, flexible, evolvable, scalable, initiate consumer action, positive force for change. ‘We believe that all of these things will increase the rate and reach data of packaging recycling,’ Bedarf says. ‘We envision that the outcomes from this project will serve to highlight the limitations of the current US recovery system from a collection standpoint.’

The on-pack recycling project leaders realize its success rides on consumer feedback and qualitative data evaluation. The committee collected data regarding availability of recycling by material and application in the US and Canada by compiling consumer feedback data submitted by its member companies and through online responses to surveys. It continually reaches out to recyclers, local government and other interested stakeholders.

Data had to be collected for both reach and rate. Recycle Reach is how far into the community a recycling project can get. Recycle Rate is how much of the possible recycled material actually is recycled. For on-pack labeling research, the SPC considers reach data more important.

The SPC launched the pilot of the LRP with its new official name How2Recycle Label and correlating website How2recycle.info to a limited audience over the course of 2012. Twelve companies participated in the Soft Launch of on-pack labeling of more than 50 million packages, including Ampac, Best Buy, Clorox, Costco Wholesale, The Esteé Lauder, Companies, General Mills, The Kellogg Company, Microsoft, Minute Maid (Coca-Cola), REI, Sealed Air and Seventh Generation. The Soft Launch was complete by 2013.

The SPC’s official Soft Launch Report found the How2Recycle Label to:

• Be understood by consumers

• Lead consumers to action

• Elicit positive impressions of products and companies

• Meet Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requirements

Today more than twenty companies are involved in driving adoption with added push from McDonald’s USA, Ecologic Brands, Target, Wegmans Food Markets and Kimberly Clark Corporation to name a few. The SPC would like the label to appear on the majority of consumer product packaging by 2016.

The development and implementation of a reliable, user-friendly, consumer-facing website like www.how2recycle.info will be critical to success.

The project is being developed around the framework of ISO 14021, what the SPC is based on, and the FTC Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, a.k.a. the Green Guides. Bedarf says, ‘It is most important to meet the FTC claims in order to reflect accurate label use within the infrastructure.’

The FTC Green Guides outline general principles that apply to all environmental marketing claims and offer terms and examples to guide consumers in making an educated decision on the products they purchase. The FTC first issued the Green Guides in 1992, and last updated them in 1998. It initiated review again in 2007 because of the explosion of environmental and sustainable claims seen on packaging in the marketplace.

The Federal Trade Commission issued revised Green Guides in 2012, including updates to existing Guides and new details on the use of carbon offsets ‘green’ certifications and seals, and renewable energy and renewable materials claims.

The FTC deems terms such as compostable, biodegradable and recyclability as confusing and a preventative to proper recycling habits. A handful of SPC members attended the ISO meeting in Sweden to focus on the definitions of these terms to ensure that the Label Recovery Project aligns with the future ISO-defined terminology.

When asked about developing a system with different symbols, and the conflict found in creating a global solution, Bedarf explains that the SPC wants to be consistent with what the BRC is doing and wants to make it global.

Yet, for fair reasons, there are two distinct schemes. The symbols used in the UK are not recognized in the US. Also, the US government requires the chasing arrows symbol to be used on anything pertaining to recycling. Additionally, the SPC wanted the look of the symbols to be more official looking, a design choice that the BRC intentionally did not follow.

In order to improve the reliability and compliance of the label, the SPC is closely following the movement of the joint strategy between Keep America Beautiful (KBA) and Curbside Value Partnership (CVP). Their goal is to increase community participation in recycling programs. Bedarf directs interested parties to www.earth911.com as a resource for various types of environmental information.

In 2008, KBA recycled a total of 189m PET bottles and collected 89m pounds of debris throughout the US. The SPC, KBA and CVP are looking for any technology within the label and packaging industry that will help increase these rates. Perhaps the wider availability and use of recycle compatible adhesives?

It can be assumed that the outcome of the work completed by these groups will force innovation. Global product manufacturers like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have a vested interest in seeing projects like the SPC’s LRP through to success. Fifty percent of Coke’s global packaging weight is non-refillable PET plastic bottles while half of PepsiCo’s global packaging by weight is glass and plastic bottles.

More sustainability label and packaging technologies are sure to advance for the betterment of the world’s supply chains and waste recovery streams as leading international businesses look to find competitive advantage.

Label converters will be expected to understand harmonized terminology for sustainable packaging and will need to adhere to the global standards on packaging and the environment being continually legislated around the world.

The hope is that this book provides a basis for the industry to move forward so that stakeholders can proactively participate in a ’greener’, streamlined flow of materials, and better supply chain communication and automation to avoid confusion, redundancy and potential inefficiencies – while lowering their business’ carbon footprint.

Clearly, consumers are becoming more knowledgeable and are more empowered than ever before with the advent of smartphone technologies and social media. Sooner than later the majority of shoppers will intelligibly select products with environmental impact in mind, rewarding those retailers and brands that have established an effective, transparent value chain that continues to look for ways to improve its products’ impact on the planet and its people.

The Supplier Matrix below can be used to create a rubrics system to evaluate the label converter business’ supply chain. Establish a base line, set goals, document and continue to improve supplier selection process to ensure profitable return in the modern sustainable world.

1998 Europen first discusses LCA as approach to evaluating packaging and its impact on the environment

2000 EU Directive Packaging and Packaging Waste enacted

2001 BRC/IOP Global Standard (food safety)

2005 Sustainable Packaging Coalition defines Sustainable Packaging

2006 TLMI organizes Environmental Best Practices Task Force

2007 Walmart launches Packaging Scorecard

2008 Walmart announces it will launch Supplier Sustainability Program

2008 TLMI launches Project LIFE (Label Initiative For the Environment) PAS 2050 established, recognized as 1st Carbon Standard

2009 Walmart launches Supplier Sustainability Program
UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen

First ISO meeting for sustainable packaging standards – SC4 established
SPC releases Framework 1.0
GPP releases its Global Language for Packaging and Sustainability

2010 P&G launches its own Supplier Scorecard
Brazilian government enacts Solid Waste Policy, PNRS

2011 TLMI announces 25 certified LIFE members
Ameripen established GPP to announce results of Global Language pilot testing
Walmart hosts second Label Waste Summit at PMDC
Canadian Stewardship Tax enacted (PET thermoforms)

2012  SPC trials How2Recycle Label with    success in US ISO agrees on updates to standards for packaging and the environment
Environmental awareness and adoption of action increases in all printed packaging sectors

2013  Environment is top discussion at annual L9 meeting held at Labelexpo Europe
More LCAs produced for flexible packaging in comparison with rigid packaging

New self adhesive products introduced to overcome recycling compatibility issues in PET collection streams

2014 Advancements made in closing the loop on   release liner in Europe, work continues in US while struggling to overcome volume and    logistics issues

2016 SPC hopes to have How2Recycle Label    incorporated on majority of consumer product packaging

• 3M

• American National Standards Institute

• Arizona State University

• BluSkye

• Carbon Trust

• Cargill

• Cisco Systems

• ConAgra Foods

• Dairy Management

• David and Lucile Packard Foundation

• Dell

• Dial Corporation

• Duke University

• Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition

• Environmental Defense Fund

• General Mills

• Google

• GreenBlue

• GS1 US

• Harvard University

• Henkel

• Hewlett-Packard Company

• IBM

• Intel

• KPMG

• McKinsey & Company

• Microsoft Corporation

• Monsanto

• Patagonia

• PewCenter on Global Climate Change

• Procter and Gamble

• Sam’s Club

• Stanford University

• Tecnológico de Monterrey

• Tetra Pak

• Tyson

• US Environmental Protection Agency

• Unilever

• University of Arkansas

• University of California at Berkeley

• University of Michigan

• University of Quebec at Montreal

• University of Texas

• Wal-Mart Stores

• Waste Management

• World 50

• World Wildlife Fund