New software steers packaging design choices for greater sustainability

The growing emphasis on all things “green” has forever changed the package-development process. Traditionally, a packaging designer considered cost, technical performance, appearance and regulatory compliance when designing a new package. The demand for more sustainable packaging has introduced new considerations and opportunities for improvement and differentiation.

The majority of a package's environmental impact are determined in the design phase. What may seem like a simple choice to a designer—which material to use in a package—represents a much bigger decision about how the world's resources will be allocated. Yet while designers have worked to incorporate sustainability considerations into the design phase, the industry has generally lagged behind in providing a credible direction to guide the process.

Recognizing the importance of design-phase decision-making, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition has developed COMPASS (www.design-compass.org), an online software application that allows packaging professionals to compare the environmental impacts of their package designs. Packages are compared on resource consumption, emissions and attributes such as material health, recycled or virgin content, sourcing and solid waste. This helps compare options and weigh the impacts prior to market introduction. The software compares packages based on resource consumption, emissions and attributes such as material health, recycled or virgin content, sourcing and solid waste. While COMPASS offers the credibility of a well informed, rigorous development process (its metrics and methodologies were developed by experts across the packaging supply chain and was peer-reviewed by a broad range of stakeholders, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), it doesn't offer a simple, easy answer. COMPASS uses a life-cycle approach to compare packages capturing inputs (the resources we use to produce something) and outputs (generally emissions to air, water and soil from the production process) across a product's entire life cycle. This approach highlights the inter-linked nature of the global supply chain. There are an average of 1,500 different links between systems for any given industrial production activity, meaning that no industry is an island, and that activities in one area affect all connections. This inter-relatedness of systems makes a case for understanding environmental trade-offs tied to different material selections in packaging design.

COMPASS provides flexibility by reporting on a range of criteria, allowing users to understand the tradeoffs of material selections so they can choose options that fit their sustainability objectives. A major effort went into collecting the most current data for COMPASS. Data collection and verification in the public domain is essential to sustainability efforts. Without credible, relevant data, efforts are based on assumptions, and improvements can't be quantified.

Minal Mistry is a project manager with the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a project of GreenBlue (www.greenblue.org). For additional information, email[email protected].