Commercial food producers and retailers have heard the message clearly: consumers want more sustainable packaging options. As companies try to answer the call, many have discovered that finding a solution that meets their needs can be challenging. Plastics are the predominant choice because of their many advantages; they are lightweight, sturdy, and affordable. Alternatives to plastics, such as cardboard, can’t meet the demands of retail food.
Many companies are taking a fresh look at sustainability and sustainable packaging. Instead of eliminating plastics, how can we reduce plastic use while maintaining the benefits that plastic brings?
One of the tools we use to measure the environmental impact of our products is known as a life cycle assessment. This third-party analysis has given us valuable insights into our operations and can be helpful for food producers and retailers. This post will discuss how it works and how it can help your company reach its sustainability goals.
What is a Life Cycle Assessment?
A life cycle assessment (LCA) is a way to look at a product's overall environmental impact, from sourcing materials to disposal. Software tools and third-party analysis can quantify this impact using industry-accepted metrics and data, showing manufacturers of all kinds just how carbon-intensive their materials, processes, and delivery systems are.
At Lacerta, we use Trayak's Eco-Impact LCA tool to assess all our materials and products, including our PET and post-consumer (PCR) plastics. By drawing from global data accepted industry-wide, we can help our customers better understand the true environmental impact of the plastic packaging they use.
The Life Cycle Assessment Stages
To understand a product’s entire environmental impact, LCAs use data from analysis of the product's various "life" stages, including:
- Material extraction and processing: Raw materials are sourced and processed into usable components for the product.
- Manufacturing: The refined materials are produced into a final product that is ready for distribution.
- Transportation: The product moves through several stages of the supply chain to reach its final destination.
- Use: The product is used by consumers.
- End-of-life: The product is recycled, repurposed, or discarded.
The results give customers a better understanding of the environmental impact of their plastic packaging and help them make more sustainable packaging choices.
The Importance of LCAs for Packaging
In 2023, Gartner released an analysis showing that efforts to reduce plastics in products were moving slowly, bogged down by several challenges. The report found that 20% of organizations will shift their focus from recycling and eliminating plastics to reducing the carbon footprint of their packaging by 2026. That means new commitments to sustainable packaging focused on making 100% of their packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.
"Organizations face operational and financial challenges that were discovered only through the attempt to deliver their goals," said John Blake, senior director analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice. "But meaningful progress on sustainability can still be made with more realistic frameworks in place."
Gartner touts LCA software tools as an important step in achieving sustainability goals, saying, "New data analysis tools are making packaging LCAs more accessible."
The Benefits of Packaging Life Cycle Assessments
LCAs offer a number of advantages to food producers and retailers that are looking to make better-informed decisions with their packaging.
- A stronger sustainability message: A life cycle assessment is a common step for companies that want to use eco-friendly packaging and promote sustainability efforts in their marketing materials. ISO standards specify that Type I environmental labeling must have third-party certification to verify a product's compliance against a set of criteria. Whether talking to a business-to-business customer or marketing to consumers, this third-party evaluation is valuable for creating compelling and trustworthy sustainability messaging.
- Data-driven decision-making: Lacerta makes LCA insights available to our commercial food producer customers. They may use the data to make packaging decisions, such as investing in higher-blend PCR products or opting for smaller packaging.
- Clearer points of comparison: LCAs allow our customers to not only thoroughly examine different packaging materials but also see how they compare to other substrates from an environmental perspective.
Life Cycle Assessment Examples
To better see how the Trayak LCA tool works and how it can help drive packaging decisions, let's look at some life cycle assessment examples:
Example 1: 48 oz. Rectangle PET Container vs. PCR Container
One of Lacerta's more popular packaging options is the 48 oz. Fresh n' Sealed rectangle container. It is available in virgin PET, 25% post-consumer plastic (PCR), and 100% PCR. As you can see in the LCA report, using 25% PCR reduces CO2 emissions by 3.1 tons throughout the life cycle, while using 100% PCR will reduce CO2 emissions by 15.5 tons, assuming a manufacturer uses 112,500 packages.
Example 2: 8 oz. Parfait PET vs. PCR
This parfait cup used for desserts and snacks is available in virgin PET, 25% post-consumer plastic (PCR), and 100% PCR. Assuming a commercial food procedure uses 360,000 cups over a product's life cycle, opting for 25% PCR reduces CO2 emissions by 4.3 tons. Using 100% PCR will reduce CO2 emissions by 17 tons over the product's lifecycle to further sustainability benefits.
Leverage LCAs for Packaging To Reach Your Sustainability Goals
As you can see from these examples, the reduction of CO2 emissions using recycled plastics can be significant. Instead of entirely eliminating plastics, companies see an opportunity to use plastics in a smarter way.
Using LCA tools and working with a food packaging producer with sustainable packaging capabilities gets companies on a path to meeting their goals. We do this by providing using our ReCERTA™ material — which guarantees an average minimum blend of 10% PCR in all of our PET products — by offering higher, customized blends upon request, and by designing packaging that uses less plastic without sacrificing durability.
The results speak for themselves. Together with our customers, our use of post-consumer recycled material currently saves roughly 324 million bottles from landfills, or over 5,173 tons of greenhouse gasses, every year.
This commitment goes beyond the packaging we make. We've also committed to making sustainability a part of every aspect of our business, from recycling materials to reducing energy consumption. We’re committed to helping your company reduce environmental impact while maintaining packaging quality and competitive pricing.
