A couple of weeks ago, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released a report titled Sustainable Packaging, Myth or Reality. It seems, however, the report doesn’t really debate the myth or reality question, but jumps right to the conclusion that “sustainable packaging is dead” and is being replaced by “efficient packaging.” How fortunate that would be for the “business as usual” crowd if it were true. But, having worked in the sustainability field for 20 years with a good deal of focus on sustainability in packaging for the past five years, I think PwC got it wrong.
I’ll concede that sustainable packaging doesn’t exist today, but the pursuit of sustainable packaging is alive and well, and we’ve already witnessed tremendous strides towards sustainability in the packaging community. Examples include: The Coca Cola Company’s plant bottle, Dell’s elimination of polystyrene dunnage via the use of mushroom and bamboo cradles, Seventh Generation’s redesigned fiber bottle, Puma’s reusable cloth shoe bag vs. traditional paperboard box, not to mention the dozens and dozens of “right-weighted” packaging examples like Nestlé Waters “lightest waterbottle in the UK” and increasing examples of high recycled content packaging including Aveda’s 100 percent HDPE cosmetic bottles and 80–100 percent co-polyester cosmetic jars, Earthbound Farms’ 100 percent PET clamshell, and McCormick Distilling Company’s 100 percent PET vodka bottle, just to cite a few. So, Kudos to Andrew Speck, of the iconic sustainability leadership company Marks & Spencer, who politely disagreed with the notion that sustainable packaging is dead when he commented in an article about the report saying, “Under Plan A we’ve made significant progress in making our packaging more sustainable, but we’re not complacent and know the bigger challenges to make a truly sustainable packaging supply chain a reality still lie ahead.”
That also seems to be the belief held by the roughly 200 member companies of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), which actually defined sustainable packaging back in 2005 (see the SPC’s Definition of Sustainable Packaging for more details), debunking the assertion PwC put forth that “the idea that anyone can come up with a single meaningful definition of sustainable packaging is proving to be a red herring.” For the record, no one from PwC contacted any staff members of the SPC while conducting background research for this report.
The study goes on to say that some packaging professionals are celebrating the “death of sustainable packaging,” suggesting that a more balanced view of packaging may rise from the ashes. This suggests a lack of awareness or understanding about the SPC Definition, because it is nothing if not balanced. The definition defines eight key criteria that address the full life cycle and supply chain of packaging, including:
1) performance and cost
2) benefit to individuals and communities
3) responsible material sourcing
4) optimization of renewable and recycled materials
5) optimization of energy resources and use of renewable energy
6) elimination of toxics in packaging
7) clean (lean and green) production and transport
8) material recovery.
Moreover, the SPC definition does not attribute greater weight to any one criterion over another, providing, as was intended by the stakeholders who helped author the definition, a truly balanced vision for sustainable packaging.
The PwC report equates “balance” with “efficiency.” Yet, while efficiency is certainly important, even as broadly defined as in the PwC report, it does not equate to a truly balanced perspective. Judge for yourself: Efficient packaging, according to PwC, means “Taking into account efficiencies that can be made during the entire life cycle of the product, including a packaging solution that uses the minimum amount of resources, produces the minimum amount of waste, while also protecting the product. And beyond that transport and display efficiency, and what happens after the product is used is also taken into account.” That explanation of efficiency covers five aspects of the SPC definition, but it fails to address four criteria that are essential to sustainability: benefit to consumers and communities, elimination of toxics and other materials of concern, responsible material sourcing, and opportunities to optimize the use of renewable energy sources. That is to say, PwC’s interpretation of efficient packaging focuses on driving economic gains and therefore represents business as usual. But it stops there. What about protecting consumers and the ecosystems that yield the resources required to sustain our entire socioeconomic system?
Are PwC and the packaging industry leaders and professionals who are praising this report really advocating for a least common denominator approach for improving packaging? What do you think?
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0 replies on “Balance: Efficiency or Sustainability?”
Couldn’t agree with you more Katherine, that the PWC report is a bit ‘unbalanced.’ Efficiency may be the easiest dimension to push in many organizations, especially in a tough economic climate, because it can drop cost out of your logistics, but it certainly isn’t the full picture of sustainability, and there can be hidden costs associated with the other elements of the SPC definition that are equally important. Cheap packaging made with toxic materials (like some corrugate I’ve seen) might be ‘efficient’ in the narrow sense, but has risks and costs that need to be included in the calculus.
Indeed, John. The though of retreating from sustainability to efficiency takes me back more than a decade ago to circa 1998, when “eco-efficiency” was de rigueur until Bill McDonough pointed out that eco-efficiency just meant “less bad,” and then popularized the notion of eco-effectiveness.
Definitions of sustainability for packaging are by nature limited. For they don’t question the nature of packaging itself as a major carrier of messaging and brand identity to entice people to buy more stuff.
Minimizing impacts and increasing efficiencies in packaging materials as with any product may achieve partial sustainability gains, which are often lost in businesses that are utterly dependent on increasing material unit throughput.
Business as usual indeed.
Lynda Grose
Fashion Designer, Author
Associate Professor, California College of the Arts
I must have missed something. The PWC paper advocates a broader view of the term “sustainable”. The paper seems to me to advocate moving beyond the term “packaging” and towards “energy” efficiency. Energy means to me the first law of thermodynamics… any interaction (human or natural) requires energy and energy can neither be created or destroyed. The first law is fundamental and tricky. We take human and natural materials (energy in one form) and convert it into energy of another form (a package). All the PWC paper seems to say… at least my take away… is look beyond packaging to a sustainable conversion of energy.
Hi Katherine
I think we all agree that packaging should be continuously improved and, as you point out, lots of companies are making lots of progress developing all sorts of innovative packs.
However, I agree with Pwc that we need to be careful that people don’t think that ‘sustainable packaging’ is anything more than a pack that first and foremost protects its contents and does that with minimium use of responsibly sourced materials that are capable of being recovered after use.
A bag, bottle, pot or can, cannot by itself be “good” or “bad” or even “sustainable”. It is only good or bad in the context of what it does and how well it works. And I know the SPC definition does refer to functions.
No type of packaging has a monopoly of environmental virtues. Whether it is degradable or compostable or inert; derived from renewable or non-renewable sources; capable of being refilled; easy or difficult to recycle, contains recycled material is of secondary importance to its role in making supply chains work efficiently.
Unfortunately, though, this focus on the pack in isloation from the supply chain has drowned out information about packaging’s critical role in preventing product waste so much so that some companies now almost apologise for using packaging, even though it is critical to their business and has a net positive environmentla impact.
On a global scale we need more, not less, packaging to ensure that the food that is already grown and could feed the whole population, actually reaches people.
Hello Jane,
I am pleased that you read my blog and responded. I have to say, however, anyone who believes that the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s (SPC) definition of sustainable packaging applies to packaging in isolation, i.e., outside of the context of the product it protects and delivers and the supply chain it is a part of, has fundamentally misread or misunderstood the definition. Further, the SPC does not advocate for the elimination of packaging, but rather firmly believes that the most important role of packaging is to improve/increase the sustainability of the product by 1) protecting it from damage, spoilage or loss, 2) potentially extending its shelf-life and/or usability, 3) ensuring it can be delivered safely to remote locations (e.g. preventing milk from spoiling while be delivered to remote rural locations, especially in developing economies)and more. As two of our definition criteria say, sustainable packaging would meet requirements for performance and cost and benefit communities.
The key to our difference in opinion and our exception to PwC’s substitution of “efficient” for “sustainable,” it seems, is that we further believe that since packaging has such a critical role to play in improving the sustainability of products by protecting the embedded resources in them, (which almost always are far more significant than the amount of resources used in the package)and therefore can’t – in most cases be eliminated – there needs to also be a focus on ensuring the package itself is as sustainable as possible. By that we mean optimized (not necessarily maximized) in every way.
Truth of the matter is, when we (at GreenBlue and the SPC) advise companies on packaging sustainability, we rarely provide a yes or no; black or white answer. Instead our response tends to be “it depends.” While I think all of us would advocate for companies using responsibly sourced materials, we can’t always say, more recycled content is better or less material is better or only renewable material is better. Answers to those questions always depend on what is being packaging, where it is being delivered, what market(s) it will be sold into, etc.
The SPC, with its rigorous definition of packaging sustainability, does not want and certainly does not expect any company to apologize for packaging. In fact, we celebrate its important function in a more sustainable economy. On the other hand, we do expect companies to optimize the design, production, transport and performance of the package, and we believe our definition language has been very carefully crafted to convey that message without suggesting that packaging sustainability can be achieved outside the context of product delivery or package/product supply chains.
Nothing can be sustainable in isolation. Everything is systemic. And system sustainability is holistic.