Since Wal-Mart unveiled its Packaging Scorecard for sustainability to the packaging community in late 2006, brand owners have sought to understand how this initiative will affect them and their product packaging.

The scorecard is a Web-based database populated by Wal-Mart consumer packaged goods suppliers with details on the packaging for each of their products. Designed to calculate the net environmental impact of this packaging, the scorecard computes a final score for each package based on the results of nine metrics. The scores ultimately rank the packages against competitive products within each category. Among the metrics considered are greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), product-to-packaging ratio, cube utilization, and innovation, just to name a few.

In this 7-minute Podcast, Sam’s Club director of packaging Amy Zettlemoyer-Lazar speaks to Packaging World senior editor Anne Marie Mohan about how brand owners can begin the process of designing their product packaging for sustainability.

Also in this exclusive interview, Zettlemoyer-Lazar shares:

• Examples of retail product packages that have been redesigned to have less environmental impact.
• How Wal-Mart is working with brand owners to educate them on the scorecard and on the latest packaging materials and equipment that enable greater packaging sustainability.
• Advice on filling out the Web-based scorecard database.
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To listen to Part 2 of this interview, see Scorecard metrics, goals explained.

For the accompanying February 2008 cover feature, see Wal-Mart speaks on the Packaging Scorecard.

For more on the scorecard, see Wal-Mart reveals packaging scorecard, published October 2006, and Wal-Mart scorecard going global: May 2007 update, published May 2007.