What does sustainability actually mean? (Edition 12)

So, what exactly does 'sustainability' or to 'be sustainable' actually mean when it comes to packaging for consumer goods?

Is it about the carbon footprint? Is it about the energy consumed at manufacture? Is it about how the products are packaging, recycled and disposed of, or is a mixture of all?

If you asked most consumers, or even experts in the industry what it means to 'be sustainable', they’d be hard-pressed to answer.?

The simple truth is, if you pin down a consumer on actual carbon data and overall 'carbon saved' on one packaging format versus another they would have no idea whether this was a significant or moderate improvement.

I suppose this comes down to brands and especially manufacturers to educate consumers and explain exactly what some of these figures mean in real terms and also some of the trade-offs when it comes to trying to achieve them.

This conundrum was brought to light recently when the curiosity got the better of me and I decided to open up one of those snazzy paper wine bottles.?The truth I found out is that its not strictly a 'paper bottle' but a clam shell covering a pouch.

The pack consist of four separate components, a foil lined bag which is connected to a different plastic lug, a carton outer and a metal lid. Whilst the card wrapper is recyclable, the foil pouch isn’t. On top of that, the plastic lug that is adhered to the foil liner would take some doing to separate and recycle as a separate component. In fact, even the Incredible Hulk would have issues separating that foil bag from the plastic valve!

I read with interest on the pack itself about the 'sustainability' and 'reduced carbon footprint', but I have to say I’m not sure that I’m fully convinced because of the smorgasbord of multi-material gizmos that went into its construction

Is this really better than glass environmentally and from a waste point of view when you factor in the full life cycle from creation to disposal? Would reusing say glass?in a circular economy, not be much more efficient?

Safe to say the post created quite a debate so I thought it worth expanding on some of the comments and observations from others on the post in this next newsletter.

1. Is this option more sustainable than glass?

There are wide selection of experts, it has to be said mainly those people involved in the manufacturing of these components that are quite happy to quote a variety of carbon based facts, but these tend to ignore the elephant in the room which is the non-recyclable waste at the end of the process.

I'm not going to go into all the facts and figures and details that were quoted in the post, you can see those for yourself, but the manufacturer states that there is less carbon created in its manufacture.

Whether this includes the logistics of getting all the components into one place in a factory, the carbon involved in recycling the component or wether that includes the 'breaking down' of these components at the end of their life remains to be seen. That part is not fully clear and for me, it's really important to see the full picture so that you can make an informed choice.

I'd love to see a life-cycle from shipping of base components through manufacture, till end of life, in terms of energy used and waste created.

2. Circular economy?

One of the best ways of resolving this would be to return to a circular economy. It’s something that used to happen in the early 80s with carbonated soft drinks and earlier than that with milk bottles. You ordered from the 'Pop man' and a week later the van came round to pick up the empty bottles, then, back there went into circulation.

It’s a great solution but possibly relies on a couple of important factors. The first is standardisation so the same bottle could be used for lots of different applications.

The second factor that somebody quoted on the post was that how would we solve the issue of wine bottles being sent from Australia and New Zealand over to the UK, it’s not just a straightforward as gathering up all those bottles and then shipping them back.

In this instance, maybe shipping things over in another format and bottling in the country of distribution could be a better work around?

3. Recyclability

This is the key issue for me. As you’ll see from the post there are lots of different components in this pack some of which can be recycled, the card outer and some which can’t. The foil lined bladder on its own can’t be recycled but this is compounded as it is adhered to a plastic lug made from a completely different substrate.?Separation of those to components is somewhat challenging!

The result is that the “compromise“ seems to be that whilst the other bits can be recycled only this part ends up in landfill – is that actually a good compromise? I don’t feel it is, in order to potentially solve one problem you’re creating another.?

This paper bottle isn’t strictly a new innovation. It’s not too dissimilar from a wine box which has an outer cotton box and an inner foil bladder to hold the wine. From memory, that was always touted as multi-material waste and frowned upon!

4. PET bottles

The other proposed solution which has merit are changing the substrate completely. Part of the issue with glass is the weight when it comes to distribution and logistics so an easy workaround is to use a PET bottle, as this is widely and easily recycled. One issue here possibly being a quality perception from the consumer. A cork in glass solution will always be seen as conveying better quality credentials than a plastic bottle.

There are those that waive their arms around regards plastic being the root of all evil, but as I mentioned it’s widely recyclable and a very lightweight solution so global logistics are far less of a problem.

Another advantage over using a substrate such as plastic is the ease in which it can be moulded into square shapes so that there is less shipping of dead space.

But its not all positive news from the plastic camp. A mere 15% of all plastic produced globally since the 1950s has been recycled or repurposed, leaving the vast majority accumulating in landfills or our ocean.

Additionally, Europe burns more plastic than it recycles. And when it comes to PET bottles, only around 61% was collected for recycling in 2020 – while new bottles often consist of only 17% recycled plastic.

Glass is the leader in recycling, with extensive collection systems that bring an 80.1% collection rate, 92% of collected glass being effectively recycled, and 91% of this recycled material being processed in a closed-loop glass recycling system

5. Aluminium bottles?

Aluminium is also another good solution. Lots of different FMCG products are now borrowing pack structures more often seen in carbonated soft drinks because of the ease of recycling and the fact that it can stay in a circular economy pretty much forever.

In fact recycling aluminium uses almost 90% less energy than mining raw aluminium ore out of the ground.

Conclusion

So, what does it mean to be sustainable? What role do brands and manufacturers have in communicating the full picture to consumers?

I think the most important point to stress here is that there is a responsibility from brands and manufacturers alike to be honest and transparent (that’s not a glass based joke by the way!) with consumers, and not try and bamboozle them by quoting carbon figures that mean absolutely nothing to the lay consumer.?

Being carbon neutral or reducing the carbon footprint shouldn’t come at the expense of increasing the amount of non-recyclable waste.?

Companies need to be far clearer regards sustainability. It’s no good quoting various carbon saving figures when these don’t capture the full picture. Many of these proposed solutions only provide further items for landfill or that will be discarded in the oceans. It is the packaging equivalent of kicking the can down the road, and pretending that you’ve come up with some miraculous solution.

Manufacturers and companies pitching products as more green have a responsibility to make sure the full life cycle is covered in any of the statistics they quote from transportation of the raw materials, to manufacturing through to the end of life disposal.

So on the question of sustainability the only question that I still have is the following, is this continual green washing sustainable?

?? Some key points:

• Lack of clarity on what "sustainable" packaging truly means in terms of full lifecycle impact.
• Multi-component packages like "paper bottles" create recycling challenges and potential non-recyclable waste.
• A circular economy with standardized, reusable packaging could be a better solution.
• Transparent communication on true environmental impact, not just selective carbon figures, is needed.
• Companies must take responsibility for the entire lifecycle, not just manufacturing carbon footprint.

?? Featured podcast episode:

This podcast episode looks at the Branding & packaging design for Yakult & the benefits of using core assets consistently.

You can follow the show here , it's available wherever you get your podcasts. (If you are an Apple podcasts purist, you can find the show here )

?? Some of our posts you may have missed.

The original LinkedIn post:

The benefit of distinct packaging:

?? And thats a wrap!

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