Eco-friendly and unbreakable

Sustainability is steadily gaining in importance for consumers. They want ethically and ecologically impeccable products, packaged in a resource-conserving manner that nevertheless ensures their perfect condition when purchased. This is a major challenge to packaging producers, as the industry wants to save on materials without compromising the stability of the packaging in any way.

Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group Unilever, owner of international brands such as Domestos household cleaner and Dove soap, is pursuing an ambitious strategy. It plans to double its worldwide sales from the current €40 billion by 2020, and simultaneously halve its CO₂ emissions by improving efficiency in packaging and production.

The company is also assuming greater social responsibility. By 2020, for instance, it aims to have integrated half a million small farmers and traders in developing countries into its supply chain. “We intend to be a sustainable company in every sense of the word,” says CEO Paul Polman.

US market analyst Pike Research estimates that global sales with sustainable packaging will almost double between 2009 and 2014, from US$88 to US$170 billion. “The environmental awareness of consumers has significantly increased as a consequence of the climate debate,” explains Pike Research President Clint Wheelock.

Alongside climate protection, social aspects play an increasing role. “We are seeing a trend towards ethical consumerism,” declares analyst Jens Lönneker of Cologne-based market research company Rheingold. He has observed that fair trade is firmly established among LOHAS (consumers who aspire to a Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability). Now it is spreading to ‘18-plussers’, who prefer fair trade beer or lemonade.

Costs and benefits

For the industry, the sustainability trend is both a curse and a blessing. On the one hand it has to develop new products and campaigns, incurring high costs. On the other, the increasing demand for sustainable products promises economic growth. This is why the financially strongest big companies such as Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and Unilever pursue comprehensive sustainability strategies.

They support environmental, nature and aid organisations or provide development aid themselves. They also invest in more efficient production lines and packaging. “We will cut our materials consumption by a third by 2020,” promises Unilever.

Packaging manufacturers help the industry to reduce its ecological footprint. They design new packaging and develop the associated production processes. This is no easy task. Raw material consumption needs to be reduced by using thinner and smaller amounts of resource-intensive materials, but this must not compromise the integrity and stability of the packaging.

“The top priority is protection of the packaging contents,” says Stefan Glimm, Managing Director of the German aluminium industry association GDA. There is a good reason for this. According to the European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment (EUROPEN), the value of the resources input into and held in food products is much higher than the value of the packaging that protects these products. Product losses resulting from inadequate packaging therefore account for more CO₂ emissions than are saved by eliminating surplus packaging.

In developing countries, food losses are a big problem. According to EUROPEN, 40% of the goods in the supply chain are lost. Better protection of products in these countries could therefore considerably ease the burden on the environment.

Food protection will also be one of the key themes at Interpack, the most important event in the packaging sector, from 12-18 May 2011. The special exhibition Save Food, organised with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, will show how the individual elements in the value chain can make a contribution to cutting worldwide food waste, in terms of packaging, logistics and transport.

Ecological and safe

Packaging manufacturers have come up with many innovations to demonstrate that safety and ecology need not be mutually exclusive. Sonoco, for example, will exhibit efficient packaging solutions in the form of its new True Blue Line. According to company spokesman Jeff Schuetz, they are just as stable as their predecessors but contain less material or can be more easily recycled.

The industry is already making appreciative use of this range. German food conglomerate Kraft Foods recently started to use Sonoco-designed containers made of recyclable board instead of tins for its coffee brands Maxwell House, Nabob and Yuban. Another example is Unilever, which has redesigned the plastics bottles for its Suave brand haircare products with the help of Sonoco: the new containers require 16% less material.

German plastics packaging industry association IK views such innovations as a confirmation of its own position that plastics is eminently suitable for sustainable packaging.

“It is very versatile,” declares Isabell Schmidt, IK expert on the environment and sustainable development. Plastics provides protection, is transparent, and thanks to the low weight of the packaging, it enables savings to be achieved in transport costs and CO₂ emissions.

Besides plastics, the world’s most frequently used packaging material, conventional materials such as paper, board, glass and metal are also candidates for a sustainable packaging strategy, as each offers its own individual advantages.

A study by the Dutch research institute DE Delft shows that paper and board, for example, have a smaller carbon footprint than most other packaging materials, due to factors such as efficient production and lower transport emissions. The CO₂ equivalent of paper and related materials is 676kg CO₂/tonne of material, whereas that of other conventional materials is at least 1,000kg.

Glass, on the other hand, cannot boast a very low weight, but is returnable, recyclable and absolutely safe.

“Glass is inert, so that practically no interaction can occur between contents and packaging,” explains Johann Overath, Managing Director of the Federal Association of the German Glass Industry. The raw materials of glass occur in sufficient quantities in nature.

Tinplate and aluminium also protect food products and can be easily recycled. The recycling rate of aluminium is 82.3% and that of aluminium cans is an impressive 96%. “This rate will be boosted still further by closing the gaps in recycling loops,” says the GDA’s Stephan Glimm. The sector also wants to cut the consumption of materials. According to Mr Glimm, “The aim is to protect more products with less aluminium”.

Manufacturers of established packaging materials must, however, expect increasing competition from bioplastics. These may not be as versatile as conventional oil-based plastics, but they make up for this with ever-improving properties. UK company Innovia Films has launched Natureflex biodegradable plastics film for food products. It is 100% compostable. According to Head of Marketing Andy Sweetman, the multilayer biofilm forms an excellent barrier against moisture and gases, so that products such as biscuits retain their crispness over a long time.

German bioplastics producer FKuR Kunststoff also focuses on excellent barrier properties. Its products include multilayer biofilms that also prevent leakage from econappies. A new development from FKuR is biopackaging suitable for very low temperatures, which is used for frozen food.

The rapid advance of bioplastics packaging is also reflected at interpack. Whereas only a special display of 250m² was devoted to this theme in 2005, in 2011 there will be about 2,000m² of regular exhibition area.

Manufacturers of packaging machinery can also contribute to further rapid cuts in the cost of packaging. The Food Processing and Packaging Machinery Association of the German Engineering Federation VDMA believes a major contribution to sustainable production can be made through the use of modern technology, by reducing packaging machinery’s consumption of energy and operating materials. For instance, servo technology, which functions more dynamically and efficiently than large drives, could be used.

Although the purchase costs for these machines are high, the VDMA claims that they can be recouped easily during the life cycle of a modern system through its lower energy consumption.