Marketing claims often not sustainable

The Federal Trade Commission recently announced that it will host a public workshop about the Green Guides and Packaging on April 30 in Washington, DC. The meeting will examine recent developments associated with environmental packaging claims and consumer perceptions of these claims. “Sustainable” is one of the terms that the FTC has listed as new and for which no guidance is currently provided. As director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, I have been asked to participate in the workshop to discuss the Sustainable Packaging Coalition's definition of sustainable packaging. I thought I would share my perspective on the complexity of using “sustainable” as a marketing claim for packaging.

In September 2005, the SPC released its “Definition of Sustainable Packaging.” Developed through a consensus-seeking stakeholder process with SPC member companies, the definition is composed of eight criteria that, together, present a vision for sustainable packaging. The word that needs emphasis and the one that makes the singular claim of sustainability difficult is “together.” Individually, none of the definition criteria represents sustainability for packaging. It's only together that these criteria capture the social, economic and environmental elements that need to be addressed if we are to realize truly sustainable packaging systems. Under this definition, no packaging currently qualifies as “sustainable;” the definition is a vision to strive toward, it's not a checklist for marketing claims.

The packaging value chain is a complex and efficient set of operations that function to manufacture and deliver effective packaging to end users and consumers at a price the market will bear. Some of these operations are addressed in the SPC definition criteria covering the sourcing and manufacture of materials or the physical design of packaging to optimize materials and energy. Other definition criteria extend to activities that go beyond the production of packaging and address other life cycle considerations like “effectively recovered and utilized in biological and/or industrial cradle-to-cradle cycles.” Beyond supply-chain activities, the definition also addresses issues like the quality of energy, materials and production.

System thinking is implicit in the concept of sustainability and the definition of sustainable packaging. Thus, marketing claims of “sustainable” packaging are misleading when they are rooted in a single attribute. It's inappropriate to claim the sustainability of a package based on anything other than a comprehensive set of considerations. Actions short of this might reflect steps in the right direction, but should be described for what they are: Energy-efficient; lightweight; bio-based, post-consumer-recycled content; etc. It remains to be seen whether it's possible to develop a comprehensive list of considerations and methodologies to support marketing claims that reflect sustainability for packaging. For now, we need to rigorously understand and define steps we take to “green” packaging.

Sustainable packaging is an aspirational concept, driven by a clear vision. We realize it through small steps that will transform the packaging industry, but we will only get there by calling a spade a spade.