Consumer Goods, Packaging & Retail
Achieving sustainable packaging and retailing of products is central to the producer-consumer relationship. But environmental impacts of packaging and the retail supply chain play a vital role in many issues related to resource use and wastes. EarthShift Global uses leading life cycle research and modeling to foster extended producer responsibility and reduce the impacts when consumers bring their products home.
Small decisions by packaging designers can have big environmental effects. Get unique visibility into design, materials, and manufacturing choices with EarthShift Global’s PackageSmart, the easiest-to-use packaging LCA software on the market. It offers access to over 8000 internationally verified datasets so your whole team can make informed decisions during the design process.
Manufacturing-intensive enterprises in the consumer goods field are often ripe with opportunities for sustainability improvements at many points – decisions on materials and ingredients, production processes, packaging, transport, recyclability, and more. Because product volumes tend to be high, small gains can have a large multiplier effect. And a strong sustainability message in product marketing has increasing appeal to many consumer audiences.
The EarthShift Global team has extensive experience working with prominent consumer goods companies, including Procter & Gamble and Rubbermaid; we partnered with Colgate-Palmolive on development of our PackageSmart packaging life cycle assessment (LCA) software.
Our Consumer Goods clients include:
Packaging
Packaging is in the spotlight of sustainability. To many, it is the low hanging fruit—it is typically immediately discarded upon purchase, having to be recycled or sent to landfill. Yet packaging fulfills a vital role, minimizing product damage and playing a key role in attracting and informing customers. To help packaging engineers navigate between product protection needs and sustainability, EarthShift Global has worked with both packaging and manufacturing companies to optimize their packaging.
We developed PackageSmart LCA Software to enable packaging engineers like Dan Robinette, formerly of the Robinette Company, to rapidly assess new and existing package designs. Customizable by application, the tool is simple to learn and optimizes the LCA experience. Our team of consultants has helped companies understand the impacts of their packaging and how it compares to the alternatives. EarthShift Global helped YFY assess its innovative npulp, a pulp packaging made from straw that would otherwise have been burned as waste. We worked with GE Health Care to compare the impacts of reusable and disposable packages. Packaging has a number of social aspects, too. It can provide messaging to help the user reduce impact during the use of the product or to provide other social benefits. Or it can decompose on the roadside, reducing visual pollution. EarthShift Global can help you assess the options and how they affect your bottom line.
Additional Resources:
Article for The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, (December 2014)
Npulp® Paper Packaging — YFY Group in China uses Green Chemistry to Address Air Quality
A Comparative LCA of Npulp® and Molded Paper Packaging Summary Report (PDF)
Retail
With high volumes, large supply chains, and complex tradeoffs between convenience, efficiency, and other market factors, the retail sector affords many opportunities for sustainability improvements. And because of the primary importance of brand and the consumer-store relationship, retail corporations have found strong value in implementing effective green strategies. EarthShift Global can work with retailers to develop LCA tools that will allow them to better understand the sustainability of their supply chains, packaging and distribution networks, and corporate infrastructure and operations.
Our Packaging & Retail clients include:
