Sustain-enable

By Tom Posted on June 21, 2011 Leave a comment

by Chris Forecast

As we know Government environmental thinking on packaging has recently expanded the Courtauld agreement, from a focus on primary packaging, to a wider view on the Co2 lifecycle and footprint.

 

Courtauld 2 is a worthy next step and probably a more effective way of reducing Co2 emissions. For instance reducing the specification of a piece of packaging might actually reduce it’s effectiveness, and so actually increase the percentage of product wastage and so the Co2 footprint. If you waste the item that you’re trying to protect, just think of all the energy that went into producing it that you’ve just wasted, right down to the petrol used by the vegetable picker on their way to the field!

 

The problem is that people understand and relate to the packaging in their hand, and it’s hard for them to understand much more than that and maybe it’s unrealistic to expect them to? I think few people disagree that Co2 reduction is a good thing, but maybe the problem is how to take the consumer on the journey? After all getting people to engage with the process of recycling and energy reduction is key to the success of any packaging improvement.

 

So do we fall back to Courtauld 1 again and try to find ways of reducing the primary packing? That’s not necessarily a problem if we do it in ways that make sense to the consumer, such as the flexible Kenco coffee refill. But also make sure that any changes we make do not increase product wastage, in fact they should aim to reduce it, and we should in fact aim to reduce Co2 emissions across the whole packaging lifecycle.

 

Finally in all this let’s not forget that packaging is in fact a good thing, it protects the things that we buy and delivers them to us in the best possible condition. For instance the film on a cucumber extends it’s life for up to 14 days, without this it dries up and goes to waste before we can eat it.

 

So let’s all reduce, but let’s make it relevant to the consumer but also effective across the full product lifecycle.