New coalition advocates sustainability in packaging

The general idea of "sustainability" has been bumping around different industries in recent years. In broad strokes, think of sustainability as doing business without depleting resources or hurting people. The triangle of economic, environmental and social considerations is typically cited as the basis of the sustainability approach.

In fact, so many businesses have made sustainability their guiding philosophy, that the Dow Jones has a variety of sustainability indexes to track the performance of such companies.

Because environmental facts are one of the key considerations in sustainability, you knew that sooner or later the concept would target packaging industries. Sure enough, a Sustainable Packaging Coalition has recently emerged. The first Sustainable Packaging Forum, to be held Oct. 17 to 19 in Philadelphia, sponsored by Packaging Strategies, the coalition and others, is testament to the rising interest in the subject.

The coalition includes prominent consumer product companies as well as prominent packaging materials manufacturers and converters. In September, it even issued principles toward creating a definition of "sustainable packaging."

The principles say that sustainable packaging:

Long-time observers of the environmental pressures on packaging will see some familiar themes here. "Reduce-reuse-recycle" was the mantra of state and local officials who sometimes translated these goals into laws and regulations in the late 1980s and 1990s. More than one effort was made during that era to provide a "scorecard" of materials and industry approaches, sometimes comparing company efforts to those of its competitors, sometimes comparing different technologies, and—although the packaging industry hated the idea—making a side-by-side comparison of different materials, all to determine what was best for the environment.

Advocates of the new approach to sustainability speak in terms of a 'cradle-to-cradle' analysis, in contrast to the more traditional 'cradle-to-grave.'

If anything was learned during that period, it was that this is not a simple question to answer. Packages that are recyclable, for example, sound good until you take into account the lack of economic viability of a recycling program. Biodegradable materials sound good until you realize that they often aren't disposed of in a way that allows them to degrade.

Advocates of the new approach to sustainability speak in terms of a "cradle-to-cradle" analysis, in contrast to the more traditional "cradle-to-grave." The cradle-to-grave concept was intended to broaden the perspective in which packaging was evaluated so that its environmental effects were taken into account from its creation through its disposal or other disposition. Cradle-to-cradle attempts to broaden the perspective.

It is still too early to tell what these principles will mean in terms of practices or even pressures, even as individual companies may be starting to translate the concepts into action. The practicality of the various considerations listed for individual packages is, to say the least, iffy. It's encouraging that the coalition recognizes that economic viability is a necessary part of this equation.

Sustainability, whatever its substantive content, will have to be compatible with economic realities in order for it to really take hold in the hearts and minds of packaging businesses, as opposed to legislators or environmental advocates. Its goal appears to be to balance business needs with environmental and social justice considerations, not ignore them.

At the risk of throwing cold water on the whole effort, a cursory review of the principles is not encouraging, simply because they are so vague. Words like "healthy" and "market criteria" are just asking for trouble. At presstime, the coalition was about to issue explanatory texts about each principle, which might help clear up ambiguities and chart a clearer direction forward. We hope so, because when principles are vague, in practice, they can end up looking like virtually anything. Then advocates will say, "Look how good we are; we comply with the principles!" And, critics will respond, "But you missed the point completely." And they will both be right.

Regardless of their practicality, the emergence of interest in these issues assures that the pressure is on to rethink any environmental effects of packaging. Hanging over U.S. packaging is Europe, with its mandatory take-back and other programs. Programs like that can begin to emerge here if consumers and public officials don't believe industry is doing enough to address environmental considerations.

Eric F. Greenberg is principal attorney with Eric F. Greenberg, PC, with a practice concentrated in food and drug law, packaging law and commercial litigation. Visit his firm's website at www.ericfgreenbergpc.com Contact him by e-mail at [email protected], or by phone at 312/977-4647.