Tag: packaging

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Target & How2Recycle

Target’s Kim Carswell explains why the retail giant decided to join the How2Recycle program

Kim Carswell, Senior Manager of Packaging for Target

At Target, our guests are the center of everything we do.  We have a strong connection to our guests, and we continue to seek ways to be relevant to them.  Adding the How2Recycle label to our owned brand packaging is a way to heighten this relevancy.
Why did you decide to use the label?
Two reasons: our guests and our company strategies.
We know that how our guests manage their packaging when they are done with it is a key way for them to live sustainably. Adding the H2R label to our packaging will help them dispose of it the right way.  Using the label also increases the transparency between Target and our guests, which is important to us.
The label aligns with our three sustainability strategies:

  1.  Provide our guests with ways to live more sustainably
  2.  Offer a great assortment of sustainable products
  3.  Reduce waste

How did you go about it?
We were very intent to attach this work to other brand redesigns already in the works.. We are looking at a long term schedule that will allow the work to grow organically. We are keen not to create packaging waste when we change our packaging designs. We plan to flow through the changes so that old inventories can be depleted. Another key goal is to embed the addition of the label into current processes as much as we can to set ourselves up for a robust and sustainable approach.
What Target products currently use the label?

We have the How2Recycle label on our food brands including Market Pantry, Archer Farms, and Simply Balanced.  It is also on a wide array of our up&up products and select Spritz party supplies items.
And finally…
Here are 10 things we learned along the way and want to share with you. Success for Target, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and all the other How2Recycle label users is for more and more companies to sign on, so we are delighted to share what we learned.

  1.  Tie H2R to company strategies
  2.  Take internal partners and engage them
  3.  Find and tap into internal leaders
  4.  Share the story
  5.  Attach this work to planned brand designs
  6.  Go to where people are
  7.  Keep a close connection with the SPC
  8.  Be flexible
  9.  Keep sharing the story
  10.  Recognize and celebrate the people and work

 

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Sustainable Packaging Coalition

A Student's Perspective on SPC Advance

Carol Pan is pursuing a master’s degree in packaging science at Rochester Institute of Technology, and attended SPC Advance as a student volunteer. Her impression of the event:
SPC Advance provided a wonderful opportunity to meet and learn from professionals engaged in sustainability from different sectors. The theme of educating consumers came up in many of the sessions, especially those focusing on the implementation of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s How2Recycle on-package recycling label, the launch of the American Chemistry Council’s W.R.A.P. (Wrap Recycling Action Program), Target’s “Made to Matter” curation of 16 sustainable brands, and the FTC’s clarification of their “Green Guides” for on-package labeling. In addition to the presentations, I especially enjoyed the hands-on tour of the 3M Innovation Center where we were able to interact with a few of its core technologies that are versatile in many everyday applications. SPC Advance added to my packaging knowledge with real life examples and current trends, and also broadened my professional network — all of which are invaluable for a future packaging professional.

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Collaboration as a Tool for Advancement

During the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s recent event, SPC Advance, I couldn’t help but notice the underlying theme of collaboration among attendees and their respective organizations.
Discussions and sessions made it clear that collaboration is necessary and frequent among organizations practicing sustainability regardless of their role in the supply chain. The Value of Forest Certification working group elaborated on the need for big-name brand owners to have an affiliation with forest-friendly NGOs in order to push their business forward. Partnerships with forest certification systems assist brands in building the trust of their consumers and the rest of the supply chain, especially at times when the environmental ethics of large corporate practices are put into question.
The same interaction is evident in the plastics industry, as identified by the sessions on the current and future state of flexible packaging recovery. Shari Jackson of the American Chemistry Council called on retailers to join WRAP, a campaign aimed at educating consumers and facilitating plastic film recycling. Wegmans Food Markets was identified as an exemplary campaign partner, as new signage and marketing materials has successfully engaged their customers in film recycling, resulting in a 20% increase between Earth Day 2013 and Earth Day 2014. During Jackson’s presentation attendees participated in the conversation and encouraged the WRAP campaign to engage more logistical partners to help with commercial film backhaul, as the opportunities in film recycling expand beyond brand owners and retailers.
In such a competitive business, it’s impressive and inspiring to see major corporations engage one another to derive best practices. From the mingling in the hotel lobby to the late night chats following the pub crawl to the inspirational case studies detailed in the sessions, there is no question that SPC Advance attendees recognize the value of collaboration in advancing sustainability.

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Member Spotlight Sustainable Packaging Coalition

A Tour of Aveda: Vision and Mission in Practice

One of my favorite parts of SPC Advance was our tour of Aveda’s headquarters, which includes production facilities for almost all of their products.
Aveda is known for their plant based beauty products and vision to connect beauty, environment, and well-being. They have extensive social and environmental goals for products, packaging, production, and distribution. Aveda’s organizational beliefs include themes of leading by example, empowering employees, wellness, social responsibility, and treating the people and planet with respect. In my opinion, the headquarters’ operations reflected these values.
After a brief introduction, attendees broke into groups to tour the facility. We observed receiving, production, filling, packaging, research and development offices, a gym, and onsite daycare. After the tour, attendees participated in a Q&A session with an Aveda packaging professional and visited the on-site store.
Our tour reflected many of Aveda’s values, creating a consistent message from corporate goals through production and product. I observed:

  • A place for employees to suggest improvements for themselves or co workers;
  • Employee suggested safety improvements & their outcomes;
  • Color coded reporting of “almost incidents” and incidents of all types;
  • A recently hired professional devoted to ergonomics & worker health and safety;
  • Recycling bins; and
  • A very knowledgeable staff.

Why does this matter? Aveda’s values are evident in their focus on worker health and safety, empowerment, and sustainability. Integrating values from words to actions delivers on organizational goals and strengthens their brand. They are an example of focusing on many aspects of sustainability, which is at the heart of the SPC’s Definition of Sustainable Packaging.
Aveda shows that sustainability can work, it can work for you, and it can work for your employees. Ultimately, consumers are given a brand they can trust.

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Sustainable Packaging Coalition

Things I learned at SPC Advance

GreenBlue staff record their takeaways from the recent SPC Advance.
ADAM GENDELL

  • Sustainable packaging enhances the connection between brands and consumers: this isn’t news to us at the SPC, but it was encouraging to hear so many success stories and lessons. We heard how General Mills uses our How2Recycle label to link their consumers to industry recycling efforts, how McDonald’s leverages certified fiber to build measurable brand trust, and we heard Sealed Air’s thoughts on consumer perceptions of food waste and the opportunity it creates for packaging.
  • Using sustainability as a differentiator could soon be a thing of the past: John Linc Stine, commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, shared a fascinating collection of perspectives from modern consumers that would be considered part of the LOHAS market. The takeaway: they don’t want to buy the “sustainable option”. Instead, they want the best option, and they want it to be responsibly designed. It suggests that qualities of sustainability are transitioning from a market differentiator to a requirement of doing business.
  • Minneapolis should be proud of its businesses and efforts: I knew that Minneapolis was a hotspot for business, but I didn’t know that it was a cradle for such impressive sustainability initiatives. We heard the city’s director of solid waste speak about their outlook on recycling, toured the MRF that handles the recyclables, heard from local companies like Target, 3M, and General Mills, toured the nearby Aveda headquarters. Throw in the impressive local beers that were sampled on the pub crawl, and it’s clear that Minneapolis has a lot going on.
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    Part 4: Life Cycle Assessment – A Blending of Art and Science.

    In the last of my four-part series, I’ll describe the new tertiary packaging model in COMPASS® (comparative packaging assessment) which is being released on October 7, 2013.
    There is no better way to understand something than to tear it down and rebuild it. At least that’s my motto…sometimes. When it came to building the tertiary packaging model for COMPASS® the research was interesting but it wasn’t until I began to fundamentally unravel several types of pallets that I realized all the thought that goes into designing them to meet the specified use scenarios. In the process, I collected and dismantled block type and stringer type pallets, the kind used to move groceries and construction materials in the U.S., and some specialized pallets used for shipping large office equipment. The goal was to understand the configuration, the nailing pattern, the number and type of fasteners used, the identity of wood types, and the overall weight of the pallet. In the process, I amassed a pile of lumber, some softwood species and some hardwood species, a lot of bent and rusted nails and calloused hands. This was the beginning of the parallel projects—on one hand life cycle data modeling and software development for COMPASS, and on the other hand, utilizing the lumber for creative up-cycling efforts (see A Wood Pallet’s Artful Journey).
    The first effort (LCA – Life Cycle Assessment – data modeling and software development for COMPASS) led to collaboration with faculty at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s industry leadership committee (ILC) on transport packaging, and other experts in tertiary packaging. The result was the inclusion of tertiary packaging components into the screening LCA workflow of COMPASS. The new additions expand the packaging system to include primary packages inside secondary shippers with supporting components, and a unit count of these assemblies on a pallet or other B2B delivery format with supporting components such as wraps, straps and cushioning. In effect, the packaging portrayed in the image below plus all the intermediary transportation needed to move packaged goods from manufacture to the retail shelf can now be captured in COMPASS.

    Designing Sustainability Into Packaging
    The packaging design process, as with other design exercises, starts with a need and moves to ideation. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an ideal tool to allow exploration of different concepts to fulfill the identified need, and select the choice that best fits the sustainability priorities of the company and the brand. Through the process, one can quantify environmental impacts for impact categories such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fossil fuel consumption, water consumption, human health, aquatic toxicity and others. Having this kind of information during the early design steps expands the ability of design professionals to include environmental impacts of a package design into the decision-making process along with the more traditional considerations like cost, performance, aesthetic and regulatory parameters. The result is a whole-system perspective that can produce packages that are optimized for a specific set of criteria to be more sustainable.

    COMPASS is a streamlined LCA software specifically tailored for packaging design evaluation. It is an effective tool to help make informed design decisions that are aligned with the company’s greater sustainability goals. Leading brands, logistics companies, consultancies, and academic institutions all use COMPASS to build better packaging for today’s marketplace.
    New changes in the packaging community related to environmental performance reporting are driving industry toward consistent B2B data sharing and enhanced transparency about the materials and processes used to develop both package and product. In the packaging community, these initiatives include the Global Protocol for Packaging Sustainability (GPPS) and the GS1 reporting standard. The GPPS contains a set of performance indicators for packaging that are now incorporated in the GS1 barcode system and will soon allow easy sharing of key environmental indicator data in the GPPS between trading partners. At stake are such lofty and core sustainability principles as embedding systems thinking into package and product design, benchmarking and performance tracking, and data transparency for B2B supply chain communication. On this path, companies will need a simple way to calculate the impacts associated with their packages for value chain disclosure, and COMPASS can help.
    With this expanded model, one can compare primary packaging alternatives starting at the concept stage, include the secondary containment options, factor in tertiary packaging components such as pallets, slip sheets, edge cushion, wraps and straps, and account for all intermediate transportation legs needed to move the finished product to a retail chain. Detailed information such as this can enhance the ability of businesses to incorporate sustainability parameters effectively into operations and incrementally move the overall SOP towards a new norm—one that can lead to an enhanced materials management economy: a sustainable economy.
    Such incremental operational improvements are essential to fulfill the vision of sustainable materials management (SMM) where materials are used in a carefully considered and wise manner, where toxicity and adverse effects are minimized or eliminated by design, and where material recovery is optimized so that the materials that are collected can fulfill their full life cycle potential by being available for new packaging and products. Life cycle assessment is the only comprehensive method that can help businesses glean environmental impacts associated with their processes, products, and services. Its widespread usage into everyday practice is essential to measuring and tracking progress to be able to make the necessary course corrections on the sustainability journey towards an industrial system with greater environmental stewardship.
    Visit https://design-compass.org or contact me at info@design-compass.org to learn more about LCA or COMPASS. Also, feel free to connect with me on Twitter @amistryman
     
     

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    Sustainable Packaging Coalition

    Grove to Recycler Student Video Contest Winners

    The Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s Industry Leadership Committee on Consumer Education and Outreach would like to congratulate our first and second place video contest winners! Their videos were both creative and informative, and we are pleased to share the results.
    Industry Leadership Committees bring together members of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition around a topic of interest. This spring, the ILC on Consumer Education and Outreach held a student video contest titled “Grove to Recycler.” Students were challenged with creating videos that communicate the importance and value of packaging in making our world more sustainable, while using orange juice as a theme.
    We would also like to thank our anonymous donor for providing the prize money for this contest.
    First Place: “Orange Juice and Packaging: A Loop Story” by Tim Dehm
    Rochester Institute of Technology
    Prize: $3,000

    Narrative: “This Flash-made animation was created with the intent to explain, in simple terms, the role of packaging in the life cycle of orange juice, specifically its role beyond what the consumer ordinarily sees.”
    Second Place: “Oran-ja Sustainable” by Derek Pincus & Francesca Delle Cese
    California Polytechnic State University
    Prize: $2,000

    Narrative: “Oran-ja Sustainable is a video to show the grove to recycler of orange juice and its packaging while keeping in mind our audience may be of all ages. Therefore our video clearly and simply explains the role of orange juice packaging and if it is not recycled, it can be worth more to the consumer. The polymer coating on orange juice cartons used to provide a strong moisture barrier leads to the carton’s inability to be compatible with some recycling streams in some areas of the country. Our video shows creative ways for consumers to use their orange juice carton for other purposes after use, which is sustainable compared to landfill. We hope our video inspires orange juice consumers to think twice about not only orange juice packaging but other similar paperboard cartons.”
    Many thanks to our team members & judges:
    Tamal Ghosh, PepsiCo
    Julie Kwon, Amcor Rigid Plastics
    Steve Mahler, Caraustar
    Risa Shapiro, PepsiCo
    Tim Rose, Schawk