Walter Lewis: Key names from industry and supply chain mount green fightback

With sustainability on everyone’s lips, the flak around packaging is akin to war and, as in any war, a fog surrounds the arena. So our aim must be to get a clear picture of the state of play.

A session at the 2009 Faraday Members’ Day turned out to give that clarity. Attended by companies from across the supply chain, the event included a full session on sustainability, with presentations from members on their approach.

The fightback was led by Reckitt Benckiser’s Avijit Das, who highlighted that raw materials and packaging account for just 21% of its products’ carbon footprint – while consumer usage accounts for more than 70%. On this basis, Reckitt has set the target of reducing total impact – including consumer effect – by some 20%. Radical new packs are in the pipeline.

Reckitt is not alone. Sun Chemical has a new sustainability strategy based on eco-efficiency, eco-competitive goods and services. Linpac is educating its customers and also striving for resource efficiency. Mars has published a new sustainability statement building on business principles that have been used for more than 60 years. Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle added a string of statistics showing packaging is not the problem.

Jon Alder of Rexam summed up the mood with the assertion that packaging has always worked towards more efficient production techniques and processes. We have always been leaders in resource efficiency, we should just keep going for it and believe in ourselves.

Mike Hancock, former managing director of Pira, reinforced the point by reminding everyone bad press coverage is not unique to the sector, but packaging has the advantage that it has a story to tell.

I was left with a clear and unambiguous message: be true to yourselves, aim high, continue to drive resource efficiency, focus on wider issues and include the consumer in impact assessments. It is time the packaging industry as a whole stopped apologising and boldly presented its case.

Walter Lewis is managing director of packaging thinktank Faraday Packaging Partnership.

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