Consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of their choices, and regulatory shifts are reshaping the global landscape to encourage companies to reevaluate their approach to packaging design and production.
Design for Environment
Design for Environment (DfE) is a comprehensive approach to reducing the overall environmental impact of packaging throughout its life cycle. By integrating DfE into the design process, packaging solutions can be delivered that are more convenient, more functional, and more circular than traditional alternatives.
At the core of DfE is the understanding that up to 80 percent[1] or more of a product’s environmental impact and its end-of-life options are determined by decisions made during its design phase. By adopting DfE principles, packaging can be optimized for circularity, considering factors such as material selection, resource efficiency, recyclability, and end-of-life scenarios. In addition, Design for Recycling (DfR) is taking an ever more central role in ensuring packaging is designed for recycling in practice.
What is Sustainable Packaging?
The term “sustainable packaging” encompasses more than just recyclability, compostability, or low carbon footprint. It can mean utilising renewable or recycled materials, or material reduction.
There is a risk of overemphasizing a single metric, such as carbon footprint when assessing packaging sustainability. Other factors like resource scarcity and plastic pollution also play a crucial role in shaping perceptions of circular packaging.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer that addresses every factor in every application. This means optimising packaging for sustainability often requires careful consideration based on a structured, data-driven approach. This is the core principle of the DfE process.
DfE Methodologies
DfE is a continuous improvement journey that requires measurement of performance and progress. Generating the facts and proof points about a package’s circularity performance:
- Enables strengthening of the package’s value proposition
- Provides evidence of the package’s environmental impact and highlights opportunities for further improvements
- Provides data to demonstrate regulatory compliance
- Helps to answer a customer’s questions
Assessing the circularity of paperboard packaging requires consideration of its entire life cycle, from raw material sourcing through to end-of-life. It also considers its ability to replace virgin materials in several subsequent life cycles, further supporting the circular economy.
Life Cycle Analysis
There are several methodologies that may be used to measure sustainability performance. A life cycle analysis (LCA) is one such framework. LCAs can be carried out in several ways, for example, cradle-to-gate, cradle-to-grave, or cradle-to-cradle, but they all aim to empower informed decision-making and identify opportunities for improvement. It analyses many environmental indicators, in addition to the carbon footprint, and can include energy and water use and acidification among others, and supports identifying trade-offs to help determine the most suitable pack design on a case-by-case basis.
Material Circularity Indicator
The Material Circularity Indicator[2] (MCI) is another valuable methodology. Circular design involves using regenerative, or sustainably sourced renewable or recycled materials from the outset. It also assesses recycling rate and efficiency, taking into account how effectively materials can be recycled and reused in multiple loops. The MCI assigns a score between 0.1 and 1, indicating the degree of circularity. Scores closer to 1 represent highly circular packaging, such as those made from recycled or renewable materials or designed for reusability, while lower scores suggest a more linear approach with materials sourced from non-renewable resources or with limited recycling potential. Paperboard packaging generally has an MCI in the range of 0.8, compared to plastic packaging, which is often between 0.2 and 0.5 (limited by lower recycling rates and a reliance on mostly virgin fossil resources).
Assessing Recyclability and Compostability
There are many definitions of recyclability. Standard paperboard packaging generally meets even the most stringent definitions, although some challenges exist in applications where coatings or laminates have been applied. Therefore, designing for recyclability involves strategically selecting materials that are compatible with the recycling infrastructure in the target region.
In regions where collection and recycling infrastructure is lacking, or in cases where materials are contaminated or otherwise unsuitable for recycling, composting is a viable alternative approach that is also part of the circular economy. In order to claim compostability, end products must be tested by a recognised body to certify that they are compostable in an industrial composting plant following the EN 13432 standard, or in a home composter or compost heap.
In Conclusion
As the sustainability landscape evolves, so too must the packaging industry’s approach to design. The decisions we make today profoundly impact the world of tomorrow. That’s why embracing DfE as a guiding philosophy for minimising the environmental footprint of packaging while maximising consumer value is so important.
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[1] Ellen MacArthur Foundation
[2] Ellen MacArthur Foundation