Unilever director warns that packs must stay in context

“We don’t sell our customers empty packs, so why would we look at the effect of just the pack?” he asked.

Carter also expressed his concern about using bioplastics for FMCG, although admitted the potential for some use in fresh foods, where the pack was contaminated.

“Packaging contains a lot of latent energy that should be recycled or incinerated to make the most of it,” he said.

Dr Simon Gerrard, chief technical officer of the University of East Anglia’s Low Carbon Innovation Centre, said that it was important to carry out analysis on a products entire life cycle to enable the best environmental savings to be made.

Based on work carried out with brewer Adnams he said that the part of the supply chain that had the greatest carbon impact was often counterintuitive. “Intuition is not a great predictor of reality. Carbon footprint analysis can help drive innovation, reduce costs and combat climate change,” he said.

However, a concern raised by a number of delegates was the lack of a consistent measure for carbon footprinting and some expressed doubts that the PAS 2050, due to be published at the end of October, was the best way forward.

BBC environment and science correspondent David Shukman, who chaired the conference, said that packaging was in the eye of the public and media storm because of its “inherent connection with the public”.

“Consumers don’t think about where their power comes from, but look at the plastics in packaging in their homes. Everywhere they look they bump into packaging, it’s very intimately bound with the consumer,” he told delegates from across the supply chain.

The conference at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham was organised by Edge, a consultancy specialising in the packaging, paper and printing industries, which is part of Swedish firm STFI Packforsk.

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