Heartland Presents The Green Packaging Initiative at The SPE Event in Ohio.
What is the green packaging initiative?
Packaging is a core component of shipping goods around the world. Everything from pallets and crates to cardboard boxes and protective wrap.
A portion of these materials can be reused or recycled, but many of them cannot. This lack of standards hinders the circular economy and is a major challenge for Tier suppliers and OEMs.
The goal of the green packaging initiative is to introduce standards on packaging to improve recyclability, reusability and introduce additional bio-based materials into the finished goods.
What are the benefits of green packaging?
Understanding the scope 3 emissions of your business is complex. It consists of more than 15 different components that encompass your entire supply chain.
What our partners have found, is that in plastic manufacturing there are three main components that hold most of the carbon footprint.
The Plastic Material
The plastic consists of approximately 70-80% of the finished parts carbon footprint.
The Energy To Manufacture
The energy consists of approximately 10-15% of the finished parts carbon footprint.
The Packaging
The packaging consists of approximately 5-10% of the finished parts carbon footprint.
Why are manufacturers starting with packaging to reduce scope 3 emissions?
Packaging is a great starting point for most manufacturers to decarbonize their scope 3 emissions.
For a customer to make a substantial change to a product line, there is an extensive amount of product development and compliance required to make sure the products perform to specifications.
Packaging is a drop-in alternative and can be switched back to the original if there are problems with performance. This does not hurt the brand in any way and starts the process of decarbonizing scope 3 emissions.
This enables brands and suppliers to derisk any concerns of adopting natural materials.
Who is involved in the green packaging initiative?
Brands & OEMs
Brands are the life blood of the green packaging initiative. All packaging ultimately becomes their Scope 3 emissions and an operational problem with recycling and landfill.
The value a brand sees from starting their decarbonization journey with packaging is at the forefront of their business.
A no-risk opportunity to introduce bio-based materials into their supply chain and improve recyclability is both an economic and PR win.
Tier Suppliers
The supply chain is a huge component of decarbonization, but more importantly bad packaging is a burden to operations.
Suppliers that can hone in on simple to-recycle or discard packaging that has bio-based materials reduce costs and improves workflow.
Plastic Compounders
Compounding plastic with bio-based materials is the first step in the journey. Heartland has partnered with plastic compounders across the world to produce low-cost high performance plastic packaging that will enable a more sustainable future.
How can I get involved in the green packaging initiative?
Connect with the Heartland team to discuss options of how you can begin your decarbonization journey.
Join us in creating a carbon negative future!