guidelines for sustainable packaging design - NativeEnergy

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presented here have been developed to inform packaging design at Clif Bar & Company. ... shipping and logistics), Sales, Sustainability, and Community.
GUIDELINES FOR SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING DESIGN A DOZEN WAYS TO DESIGN FOR ZERO WASTE

What is Zero Waste and why does it matter? • At Clif Bar & Company, we’ve adopted Zero Waste as a key business goal. This means that we’re working to divert (reuse, recycle, or compost) 90% or more of all solid waste at all our facilities (headquarters, bakeries and distribution centers). We’re also encouraging our supply chain partners to do the same. • The best place begin working toward Zero Waste is in the design of a new product. The guidelines presented here have been developed to inform packaging design at Clif Bar & Company.

GETTING STARTED:

1. Use the Triple E approach (Everyone, Everything, Early). Engage all stakeholders; consider every aspect of the project in an integrated way; and start early in the development process. • EVERYONE: Involve all departments and functions that will be involved in the journey of the packaging materials through the design process: e.g. R&D, Marketing, Operations (especially shipping and logistics), Sales, Sustainability, and Community. • EVERYTHING: Consider all the different impacts in each step of the product’s lifecycle. See #2 for more details. • EARLY: Take an integrated, lifecycle approach and talk to all stakeholders EARLY in the design

process. Research shows that the early stakeholder involvement results in greener products at lower costs. www.worldchanging.com/archives/001989.html

2. Think cradle-to-cradle, not cradle to grave. Consider these stages in your product’s lifecycle. • Raw Materials • Design and Product Development • Transportation • Product Use • Disposal • Recovery

How can you reduce waste (including CO2 emissions and wastewater) and close loops at each stage?

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3. Design with pallet optimization in mind. Shipping is responsible for a major portion of our carbon footprint. Design all packaging components to fit tightly into a cube of 40” x 48” x 45”(H) (minimum overhang or underhang) to optimize pallets and minimize shipping impacts.

MATERIAL CHOICE:

4. Use less stuff. Minimize package-to-product ratio. The package-to-product ratio compares the weight of the packaging to the weight of the product. • Make the packaging fit the product using the least materials possible. Don’t put a size 10 shoe on a size 6 foot. • Include the whole packaging system – master case, caddy and wrapper—in efforts to assess and reduce package-to-product ratio.

5. Use materials that nature can recycle. Use bio-based or plant-based materials (e.g. paper, cardboard) whenever possible.

6. Use synthetic materials that people can recycle. • Avoid petroleum-based materials whenever possible and only use if a recycling program currently exists. • Avoid plastics #3, 6 & 7. Never use PVC, Styrofoam, or plastics with Bisphenol A (#7) in any packaging component.

7. Use materials with as high a recycled content as possible. Focus on post-consumer recycled (PCR) content. For example, most flatboard boxes are made from 100% recycled materials but only 35% of that is post-consumer content. Plastics are available in PCR too.

8. Think outside the box. Is bulk packaging possible for select customers? How could the product be transported for those customers that do not display caddies? Is the caddy necessary? Master case? (These forest-based packaging components make up the bulk of our packaging system.) Can the product itself be designed to need less packaging? Reduce waste with outside-the-box thinking and packaging innovations.

9. Think about ink. Reduce the amount of ink and/or coatings. Reduce or eliminate VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Choose the most efficient and environmentally friendly printing processes.

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ASSESSING AND REDUCING IMPACTS:

10. Minimize shipping miles for packaging components. How many miles do the packaging components travel to reach the product? Seek out local sources

and eliminate miles whenever possible. For example, why bring in cardboard from the Midwest if you have a source close to the bakeries of equal quality?

11. Choose green energy for packaging manufacture. Encourage supply chain business partners to use renewable energy for packaging manufacture. Explore green energy and carbon offset options at www.nativeenergy.com and www.greene.org (Did you know that the paper industry is one of the largest national sources of greenhouse gasses?)

12. Do the numbers. Celebrate progress. • How many resources – trees, water, energy – does this package consume? • Compare different forest-based packaging options with the Paper Calculator, an excellent tool for analyzing the impacts of paper, paperboard and cardboard use at www.papercalculator.org. (Also consult the Walmart packaging software with the help of Cathy Knowles in Operations.) • Track and report progress in adopting more sustainable materials and reducing waste. • Celebrate all incremental steps forward – sustainable packaging is on on-going journey.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND RESOURCES: A. BSR Report: Aligned for Sustainable Design, by Business for Social Responsibility. A new resource on sustainable design, it emphasizes a holistic approach that brings diverse stakeholders to the design table. www.bsr.org/reports/BSR_Sustainable_Design_Report_0508.pdf

B. About the Triple E approach: Everyone, Everything, Early. “There’s much to be learned from green building design that can be applied to package design.”

Bill Reed, developer of LEED green building rating system An analysis of 33 green buildings in California showed that green buildings today have an incremental cost of just 0-2%. However, the level of “greenness” of a building was NOT found to be related to cost. The most significant correlation to greenness was stakeholder inclusion integrated into the project from the very beginning. www.worldchanging.com/archives/001989.html Bill Reed noted that the key to successful projects with successful economics is three "E"s: Everyone, Everything, and Early. Engage all stakeholders; consider every aspect of the project in an integrated way; start early in the development process.” The 3 E approach equally applies to business strategy, product design, industrial processes, transportation infrastructure as well as buildings.

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C. Zero Waste priorities for product and packaging reuse and recycling. As part of the Zero Waste Business Principles, the Zero Waste Alliance lists a hierarchy of “highest

and best use” for deciding what to do with discarded products and packaging, in order to recover the highest value. www.zwia.org/standards.html Use the following list, starting at the top:

1. Reuse the product for its original purpose 2. Reuse the product for an alternate purpose 3. Reuse its parts 4. Reuse the materials 5. Do sustainable recycling of inorganic materials in closed loop systems 6. Do sustainable recycling of inorganic materials in single-use applications 7. Compost organic materials to sustain soils and avoid use of chemical fertilizers 8. Compost or mulch organic materials to reduce erosion and litter and retain moisture

This hierarchy helps us see how much broader the range of opportunities are when we think about reusing and recycling products and packaging; and to note the importance of re-using before recycling whenever possible.

Examples of current “highest and best use efforts” at recycling and reuse at Clif Bar & Company • The reuse of food waste at the bakeries for animal feed is an example of #2 – reuse of a product for an alternate purpose. • The Terracycle Wrapper Brigade project is a great example of a #3 effort – the reuse of our wrappers for an alternate purpose (to create totes and messenger bags). • The sewing of old Clif banners into tote bags is a successful #3 effort. • The reuse of recycled fryer grease collected on the road to fuel the Save Our Snow RV is also a #3 effort. Our compost collection at the office exemplify #7 – composting of organic materials to sustain soils. • Donating good quality food products that cannot be sold because the caddies are damaged to food banks is a great example of a #1 effort – the reuse of a product for its original purpose.

SUSTAINING OUR

PLANET

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