FEATURED ARTICLE

Mars Takes Holistic Approach to Sustainability

By Steve Sterling, Editor

As director of sustainability for Mars North America, Kevin Rabinovitch works with all of the company's units (food, snack, and pet care) in the U.S. He develops and executes sustainability strategies and initiatives aimed at improving triple bottom line results—environmental, social, and economic.

"Mars has always taken its usage of packaging materials very seriously and worked to use the smallest amount of the least harmful materials possible to accomplish our packaging goals—from protection to presentation," Rabinovitch tells Packaging World. "We believe it's important to look at sustainability holistically rather than taking the elements of packaging, the manufacturing process, and logistics as separate independent entities."

One example of holistic thinking was the switch from a multi-wall paper to a woven polypropylene structure on the Mars 52 lb dry Pedigree® Food for Dogs product. Although the new plastic package had less than half the weight and carbon footprint of the (mostly) paper package, the biggest savings actually came from a reduction in damages in handling. The new, tougher bag decreased the company's damage rate by 65% to 75%. This switch actually saved 350% of the emissions of the original packaging structure; 50% from the new package, and 300% from the product that wasn't lost in distribution.

Successful partnership leads to new lightweight glass jar

Rabinovitch's advice to others interested in sustainability is to "Look for linkages between parts of the supply chain—everyone is focusing on their niche (distribution, packaging, manufacturing, etc.) and not enough people are looking for ways to leverage benefits across niches."

For the development of a new glass package, Mars joined with its supply-chain partner and the Waste and Resource Action Program (WRAP), a government-funded organization in Britain set up to develop methods to reduce the amount of materials going to landfills. Late in 2007, WRAP announced the successful trial by Mars of a lightweight glass jar for its Uncle Ben's sauce brand produced in the Netherlands. The weight of the jar was reduced by 6% from 258 to 243 g. The company annually packages 30 million of these sauce jars at its Netherlands facility.

WRAP said that the new lighter weight jar will save 450 tons of glass a year. This will produce the equivalent savings of 1,215 tons of C02 emissions—the same as taking 192 automobiles off the road. While the molds for the jar were changed, the lighter weight glass packaging runs smoothly on existing production lines, said Frieda Sporen, packaging innovations manager at Mars.

These two cases bring up several important points about sustainable considerations in packaging. Often the environmental, social, and economic impacts of sourcing and converting the raw materials going into the product significantly outweigh the impacts of the package itself, as the Pedigree example showed. The entire lifecycle of materials, products, packaging, and disposal and/or recovery have to be taken into account.

When Rabinovitch was asked to identify the company's most notable achievements in sustainability, he did not describe new packaging materials, energy savings at packaging facilities, or transportation impacts. Instead, he detailed the company's significant international efforts for more than three decades to promote sound environmental, social, and economic production of a vital ingredient, cocoa. The implication is that without sustainable cocoa production, there would not be any need for innovations in packaging.

The issues of sustainability are bigger than one company as the Uncle Ben's example illustrated, with Mars, its glass partner, and a government funded organization all making a contribution to a successful new package. Sustainability in its richest sense involves a complex series of interrelationships and lifecycle analyses. It is vital to calculate the sustainability of the complete package—contents, protection, presentation, and recovery—as the sustainable packaging movement matures.

SUSTAINABILITY NEWS AND EVENTS

Noteworthy Items Gleaned From the World News

By Steve Sterling, Editor

• In January, New York's City Council passed a bill requiring large stores and retail chains to collect and recycle plastic shopping bags. New York is the largest American city to enact a measure limiting the environmental impact of plastic shopping bags. Read more...
• According to a new report by Information Resources, Inc., (IRI), U.S. consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of the social and environmental impacts of their purchases. IRI surveyed the attitudes of 22,000 U.S. shoppers. About half of the respondents to the survey said they considered at least one of the following when making a purchase of a packaged food or beverage: whether the product was organic or produced and packaged in an eco-friendly manner or if the company treats its employees fairly. One fifth of the respondents were found to be committed when making purchases to at least two of the three factors. Read more...
• Innovia Films has achieved carbon neutral status on its line of NatureFlex coated biodegradable and compostable packaging films. NatureFlex complies with the specifications required for soil, home composting, and waste water applications at ambient temperatures, as well as for industrial composting. Read more...
• Diamond Packaging launched a new Web site to coincide with the introduction of its "greenbox" initiative, the company's commitment to research, design, and implement packaging solutions that are innovative and sustainable. The site features individual sections describing Diamond's green initiative—designs, materials, and methods‹as well as separate sections dedicated to sustainability, wind energy, and education. The educational section features sustainability-related definitions, acronyms, and links to relevant articles and organizations. RSS news feeds, videos, and an environmental calculator are also included on the site...
• Allied Development Corp. introduced a new subscription service for its lifecycle analysis tool for packaging. Allied said this environmental impact tool provides rigorous and fast analysis of the environmental impact of packaging. Read more...
• Georgia-Pacific announces that it is extending its Packaging System Optimization (PSO) service program to noncustomers. The PSO program is designed to help companies achieve greater profitability and sustainability by identifying packaging supply chain inefficiencies. Read more...
• Corru-Shred, Inc., offers demonstrations of loose-fill packing made from old corrugated boxes. The company sells the box shredding equipment and says that reusing the corrugated boxes for loose packing reduces waste pickup, dumpster costs, and the need to buy loose packing. Read more...

Send your sustainability news, events, and questions to sterling@packworld.com.

Upcoming Events

• 15th European Packaging Law Conference, March 4-5, 2008, Renaissance Hotel, Brussels. This conference will provide an opportunity to learn about the developments in waste prevention plans, waste targets, and the evolving progress and impact of sustainable packaging. The conference will be preceded by a one day seminar on the research and advancements being made in the field of sustainable packaging. Read more...
• Sustainability in Packaging 2008, March 11-13, Royal Plaza Hotel, Orlando. The program features bioplastics, consumers and supply chain, green design, metrics for sustainability, new materials and technologies, and recycling and waste management. The conference is organized by INTERTECH. Read more...
• Advances in bioplastics and bio-packaging will be presented in a large group exhibition at Interpack 2008, April 24-30, at the Düsseldorf Exhibition Centre in Germany. The event presents a global platform to showcase the progress of the bioplastics industry. Read more...
• The Australian Institute of Packaging National Conference will be held at Luna Park, Sydney, from June 12-13. The 2008 National Conference will highlight the latest packaging technology-related issues in the delivery of products to consumers with the theme of Climate of Change: Towards a Sustainable Packaging Industry. Read more...
• SustainCommWorld—The Green Media Show, October 1, 2008, Marriott Copley Square Hotel, Boston, brings together top executives, media professionals, and suppliers who are all striving to find sustainable solutions. Read more...