Packaging Best Practice Workshop

4 July 2013 WRAP and Spirit Pub Company

Welcome and Action Plan Updates Simon Drury Supply Chain Partnership Manager

Agenda

13.00 – 13.10 Welcome

13.10 – 13.40 Background, context and optimisation strategies

13.40 – 13.50 Task 1: Design Basics

13.50 – 14.05 Case Studies – The Bigger Picture

14.05 – 14.30 Task 2: Packaging in the Supply Chain

14.30 – 14.45 ‘Green’ Packaging: The Marketing Potential

14.45 – 15.15 Task 3: Opportunities and Barriers

15.15 – 15.30 Summary and Q&A

Background, context and optimisation basics Jenni Donato Packaging Specialist

WRAP - Our priorities Business Plan period (2011-2015)

Minimising resource use in products and buildings

Diverting priority materials from landfill

Hospitality and Food Service Voluntary Agreement

HaFS targets

Reduce packaging and food waste by 5% by 2015

Increase recycling to 70% in the sector

Resource Efficiency – what is it?

A definition of Resource Efficiency: ‘The efficient use of materials in design and construction’

Environmental Financial Social

Now included in EU’s Waste

Framework Directive.

Makes it a legal requirement to

consider the waste hierarchy when

dealing with waste

Resource Efficiency and the waste hierarchy

What is this ??

Carbon footprint of carrier bags

http://www.europackaging.co.uk/ecommerce/carbon.pdf

The primary function of packaging

... is to protect the product

Will people buy anything from the way it’s packaged?

In 2010, an artist set out to prove the value of packaging by packaging up rubbish he found on the streets of New York.

He sold over 1200 to 25 countries.

The value of packaging

80% of the cost of product set at the design stage

93% of production materials not used in the final product

80% of products discarded after a single use

Over 70% of the influence (of the environmental impact) is set at the design stage - this only takes 5%

of the overall cost of product development

How to start - the influence of design

For every £100 spent solving a problem in production

And £1 in design

The influence of design and money

It would have cost £10 in development

The easiest way to optimise your packaging is to think about it from a life-cycle perspective.

where did the raw materials come from?

what happens during the manufacturing?

how does it protect the product?

how is everything transported?

what impact does it have in use?

how is it disposed?

Only then can you assess the biggest environmental impacts and consider how to minimise this through good design.

Packaging Optimisation and life-cycle thinking

How do you measure improvements ?

Life-cycle Assessment?

Water footprinting ? Carbon footprinting?

Visible Waste ?

Packaging – a legal requirement

The Packaging Essential Requirement Regulations

Among others, this makes it a legal requirement to minimise weights and volumes of packaging

Enforced by Trading Standards Officers

Packaging Waste (Producer Responsibility) Regulations

You pay for the waste you’re responsible for – less waste, less cost!

Packaging ‘eco’ labels

Optimisation Strategies

Is it necessary?

Focus on size of packaging vs. product

Thickness of gauge of materials

The number of different

components and materials

Minimisation

2 litre bottle: reduced by 10.5% to 38.5g

500ml bottle: reduced by 17.9% to 19.7g

250ml bottle: reduced by 20.5% to 14.7g

Minimisation

Recyclability

Focus on segregation

Simple materials

Links to infrastructure in country of choice

Recycled content

Increasing the level of recycled content

Aluminium – 95% less energy use

PET – RPET – saving of 1.5 to 2 tonnes CO2e per tonne

Card – can put up weight by 25%

Concentration Why ship water around the world when it is

available at point of use?

smaller packages

fewer deliveries

need less storage space

can be applied to tablets / powders with fillers

Transport efficiency

Each bottle takes up

less space and is

stackable for

transport efficiency

They also collapse down

for transport efficiency on

the way back to the

recycling facility

Optimal Life eco-design strategy may include:

Product life extension

Longevity

Durability

Packaging – returnable / reusable

What is the payback period ?

Longevity

Embedded Carbon

Template optimisation

77 units 99 units

+28%

Second use

Definition of biodegradable ‘Capable of decaying through the action of living organisms’

Packaging terms and the consumer

Easy terms

Recycled, Recycled Content

Harder terms

Home compostable / Industrially compostable

Even harder terms

Bio-sourced / Biodegradable / Oxo-degradable

Pros Less waste Turns waste into a product Less demand for fossil fuels / raw materials / foreign oil Reduced cost of production

Cons Release of methane if it ends up in landfill Plants use valuable land Collection infrastructure Contaminants

1) What is the cost?

2) What is its function?

3) How is it stored / how long?

4) What will (realistically) happen to it at the end of its life?

BioPackaging Debate Continues

Task 1: Packaging Design Basics

Packaging Examples: Group discussion

What are its core functions? What are the materials, are they

appropriate for its application?

What has been designed well? What hasn’t?

How could you improve it using the optimisation strategies

just discussed?

In the short / medium term (low cost)

In the longer term (blue sky)

Packaging and the bigger picture

The bigger picture – going back to the life cycle

Product optimisation

Bigger picture: Case study examples

Drinks company: in-house bottle blowing Looking at lifecycle – realised they were

shipping around empty bottles

Implemented in-house bottle blowing

Reduced transport requirements

Reduced packaging

Reduced storage space

Reduced costs

Stretch wrap – Yeo Valley

Saves 3,950 rolls per year

The machine paid for itself within 12 months

It has also avoided 24 tonnes of waste creation per year for customers

Home Depot - Slip sheets

Traditionally the wooden pallet and the fork lift truck

Weigh about 5% of a wooden pallet

Increase container capacity by up to 15%

Transport Efficiency

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

NuK-6KhkekU

http://www.riverfordenvironment.co.uk/Packaging.aspx

Riverford Organic Veg

“Packaging makes up a staggering 17% of our carbon footprint” “85% of our packaging

footprint is made up of paper and cardboard yet our customers are very happy with this packaging; virtually all negative comments on packaging relate to plastic punnets and bags which contribute only 8% to the footprint”

Belkin

Paper: 18,160kg of savings

Plastic: 2,480 kg of savings

CO2 reduction: 104 tonnes

Potential cost savings are in

excess of £700,000 per annum

After

Before

Kitchen Sink Packaging

What is your company doing because of development creep?

Lincoln and York Case Study

Supply Chain Partnership Case Study: Lincoln & York

Option of

implementing a

returnable packaging

system

Lincoln & York Case Study

Current system Single use cardboard boxes,

cost in excess of £20,000 per year.

Cost excludes tapes / labels / inner bag / packing material.

Cost also excludes waste disposal / recycling costs and PRN legislation costs.

Cost / Benefit Analysis

Proposed system

Purchase of used returnable plastic crates (working on a 2 week turn around), purchase cost less than £20,000

Payback period of less than 1 year. After the first year it’s nearly 100% cost saving!

Summary of benefits and savings

Even with additional costs of maintaining

float, washing, return transit, losses

Payback period is still just over a year

System will last for 20 years

Over 26 tonnes of card avoided

82 tonnes of CO2 equivalent saved

Waste Mapping refresher

To successfully minimise your wastes, you must understand where they are being produced.

Waste mapping will allow you to identify:

the types of waste you produce

where and why these wastes occur

the volumes and costs of waste produced

priority areas for action

Task 2: Packaging Supply Chain

Each group has some packaging

think about the supply chain

identify wastes areas along its supply chain related to the packaging design

Identify changes to the design to minimise these

Hospitality & Food service

Filling / Distribution

Manufacturing/ processing

Consumer

Raw Materials

‘Green’ Packaging: The marketing potential

Research by the co-op bank

The market for the green consumer grew by 15% in 2008

The market overall grew by 1.4%

Food up 14%,

Textiles up 71%,

Stationery up 49%,

even Funerals up 18%

Households spend an additional £707 per year

Green Consumer Market

Do something new...

Green consumers:

are sincere in their intentions, with a growing commitment to greener lifestyles;

almost always judge their environmental practices as inadequate;

do not expect companies to be perfect in order to be considered 'green‘

are not likely to forgive when they feel their trust has been broken

Getting it wrong

Avoiding Greenwash

What is Greenwash ?

“Presenting a product, service or company as

green, when it’s not - or there is no proof.”

Examples of Greenwash

Too selective

e.g. promoting a very limited green aspect (recyclability), whilst ignoring the wider environmental issues (virgin material)

Unclear e.g. saying something has recycled content when it’s only got minimal amounts and no effort has been made to increase it

Phantom comparisons

e.g. A new eco-shaped bottle that claims to now be 100% recyclable

when it was before

Distracting Some would say the green credentials distracts from the most eco-friendly way of drinking water – from the tap !

Unrealistic claims

e.g. a company with unrealistic targets, with no delivery plan,

simply used for marketing purposes

CARBON NEUTRAL

BY 2014 !

‘Greening’ dangerous product / Distracting

e.g. ‘Organic’ cigarettes distract the buyer from the dangers and impacts of smoking.

Pretend 3rd Party endorsements Products using terms / fake stamps like ‘Organic’ without any accreditation

GreenWash – caught and punished

Lexus forced to withdraw 3 adverts since 2007. Claims include ‘better for the environment‘

‘low emissions’ ‘zero guilt’

But none of the ads had any reference points

The backlash – if you get caught

Other ways to get it wrong

Retailer / Sustainability charity promotions

“We’re looking for volunteers to greet customers in stores to encourage their shoppers to buy additional items of food. We’ll then distribute the food to over 900 charities and community projects across the country for people in need. “

Task 3: Improvement Opportunities and barriers

Take one of your products, think of its supply chain, draw a process flow, consider what opportunities there are.

What barriers are there to implementing these?

Fill out your Action Plan Extension Forms with 5 steps for improvement.

Quiz: Good design or crazy designers?

Any questions?

Come along to the next session to uncover more opportunities....

Forthcoming technical workshops:

5 September 2013 AM – Energy and Carbon Management

5 September 2013 PM – Transport and Logistics

10 October 2013 – Behaviour Change

10 October 2013 – Water Efficiency

February 2014 – Project Dissemination Webinar

www.wrap.org.uk/spirit