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Common big picture sustainability issues for organizations are often in news cycles, in marketing communications, on sustainability websites and in reports.  Targeting carbon neutrality by 2050, moving away from harmful chemicals by 2035, sustainable sourcing goals with a 2030 timeline and gaining 3^rd party accreditation for a sustainable product by 2030 are all examples of worthy initiatives but all exist “behind the curtain.”

Behind the curtain initiatives are ones necessary to start, to fulfill regulation requirements, to comply with sustainability standards and to satisfy investor and stakeholder needs.  They do not resonate with most everyday consumers.

Distant timeframes and what feels like impossible means to track combine to create a message that feels like writing a check consumers cannot cash for many years.  Behind the curtain initiatives are likely categorized as “nice to know” but not a driver to buying decisions.

To have a more immediate impact on the consumer, get “in front of the curtain”.  Packaging is an underutilized means of relaying an organizations’ sustainability program directly to the consumer.  Print on packaging acts as a billboard for customers both at the point of sale and in their homes upon purchase.

The story can be about the sustainability aspects of the product enclosed — certified organic, use of recycled materials, or made with renewable energy.  The story can reveal certifications or membership in sustainable organizations.  The story can include sustainable aspects of the package itself — compostable, recyclable, made from recycled content, light-weighting, or reduced size.  The story can be about how to best dispose of the package through clear labeling.   

If you want to connect your sustainability program with your customers, print it on your package.  Appeal to the eco-aware (people interested in knowing what you are doing) with authentic and careful wording.  Appeal to the eco-conscience (people who want the details) with a QR code pointing the consumer to details/proof of the claim. 

Packaging is on stage for all to see with every trip to the market and every package on the doorstep.   Organizations who do not use the packaging stage to communicate with consumers are both a missed opportunity and a risk of consumers looking elsewhere.  

A study by Nielsen IQ found that 78% of US consumers say that a sustainable lifestyle is important to them. ( Do consumers care about sustainability & ESG claims? | McKinsey).  To appeal to this majority, use the package to tell your story.

A walk in the woods renews and recharges. Renews my sense of place and recharges my efforts to continue my work in sustainability. A trip to the Harvard Forest offered a walk in the woods I had never experienced.

Located in northern central Massachusetts, the Harvard Forest covers 4,000 acres. It was established in 1907 and is a department of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) of Harvard University. Research facilities and the Fisher Museum are used by scientists, students, and collaborators at the Forest to explore topics ranging from conservation and environmental change to land-use history and the ways in which physical, biological and human systems interact to change our earth.

As part of Harvard’s Climate Action Week this past June, attendees were offered the 75 minute ride to the Forest for a day of hiking and learning. I was one of those attendees who made the trip.

Of the 32 miles of trails, our tour hiked three of them. The scientists who worked in the Forest doubled as our tour guides. They helped us view the forest as a living, breathing organism that serves as a laboratory for experiments to study the current and future effects of climate change.

We stopped to see marked trees that were part of an ongoing experiment where each tree’s diameter was measured every few years to determine growth rates of various tree species over time. Over 100,000 trees are part of the experiment.

Another parcel of land just off the main trail revealed an artificially heated plot of land to mimic how tress and ground fauna in the northeast might react to warmer ground temperatures.

Our final trail stop was a fire tower lookout. The tower stretches 92 feet and extends above the canopy of the forest. The platform at the top offers’ spectacular views and unique research opportunities.

Five different towers are sprinkled throughout the Harvard Forest. The towers offer a wide array of research opportunities such as measuring carbon dioxide and other atmospheric trace gases (e.g. methane and other hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and ozone), above canopy research, wind, temperature, relative humidity, and light measurements.

For me, the experience of hiking has always been about what is lush, green and living. As we walked and talked with our scientist guides, they brought attention to what was dying. The hemlock trees are dying.

The Eastern hemlock is a foundation species in the eastern United States and plays a critical role in the local biota. The hemlock deeply shades the soil, creating a unique microclimate for some species. The elegant and monstrous tree can grow to 100 feet tall and live as long as 800 years. Eastern hemlocks grow on 19 million acres in the eastern United States and are the dominant tree species on 2.3 million acres. The hemlocks dot the forest landscape from the Southern Appalachians to Maine and west to Minnesota. Why they are dying revealed the interconnectedness, unseen effects and complexity of climate change.

The invasive woolly adelgid, a non-native phloem-feeding insect, is killing hemlocks. Brought to America from Asia in 1950’s, the insects insert their feeding tube into the cells of the hemlock needles and feed on carbohydrates, eventually starving the hemlocks of their energy supply.

The woolly adelgid is sensitive to cold winter temperatures. Low temperatures in the range of minus 10 degrees F will kill most of the insects. The combination of climate change causing milder winters and the invasive insects’ ability to adapt to colder temperatures over time has proven to be a death nail for the hemlock. The insects march northward is only stopped by consistent cold temperatures in the winter months.

What does dying hemlocks mean for climate change?

Hemlocks are being replaced by hardwood forests that are resistant to the pest. The replacement trees have less shade which changes the environment for plants, animals and insects reliant on the protective hemlock. Mature hardwoods that will replace the hemlocks are predicted to capture as much carbon as the hemlock but that is at least 40 to 50 years from now when the hardwoods fully mature.

The hemlock is dying much quicker than the hardwoods will grow. When trees die, the carbon capture role of trees is reversed. The carbon dioxide stored in the wood is slowly released into the atmosphere. As the dying hemlocks release carbon, the new trees that will naturally replace the hemlocks are not grown enough to absorb the dead hemlock’s carbon release nor the former living hemlock’s absorption rate.

Thus, we are adding more carbon to the natural environment. A Harvard study showed that woolly adelgid could take an 8 percent bite out of northeastern forests’ carbon sequestering capabilities in the years to come.

The carbon absorption reduction is caused by a cocktail of an invasive species mixed with a foundational tree species of the eastern United Sates forest with a heavy shot of climate change.

This is just one invasive pest affecting one tree type in one part of the world.

My mind races to the bigger picture. This story cannot be unique. How is climate change affecting other tress foundational to their native lands like the Ceiba Trees in the rainforests of the Amazon, Scots Pine in Germany, the Katsura Tree in China or the Bottle Tree in Australia.

I don’t know and as our trip to the Harvard Forest came to an end, neither did the scientists.

“We don’t know” was a common answer to bigger picture questions posed by our tour group. Scientists continue to study the forest to find answers. They finished by stating “There is a lot of interacting factors. The Forest helps us better understand the combination of those factors.”

As we boarded the bus to travel back to the university, I was encouraged and motivated. Encouraged by the ongoing scientific work being done at places like the Harvard Forest. Motivated to continue my sustainability work in witnessing the layered and often unseen effects of climate change.

Encouraged and motivated.

Renewed and recharged.

A walk in the woods.

Business sustainability in the form of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) is not easy to define.  Maybe this helps.

Instead of thinking of ESG as a universal indicator of future performance, think of it as a specific set of criteria per organization that investors use to make decisions.  By investor, avoid fixating strictly on investors of capital.  Think about those people who invest in their careers by working for the company (employees), people who invest by buying products from the company (customers), people who invest their shared land and resources with the company (community) and people who invest in rules of compliance placed upon the company (regulation).  Stakeholders are invested in the company.

One stakeholder’s ESG criteria might include very different topics than another’s.  It is about how each stakeholder sees the information to make decisions as to how to invest their money and time.

A sports team comparison might help to better understand the idea of sustainability as a criterion.  Three criteria are listed to evaluate two teams.  The criteria are aimed to help which one an investor (bettor) would like to invest in (bet to win).

                                                            TEAM A                       TEAM B

Score differential                                +12                              +3

Shots scored/shots taken %              40%                             15%

Top players playing time                   75%                             40%

This one seems easy.  Team A would seem to attract the most investment.  However, what if TEAM A was a basketball team and TEAM B was a hockey team?  All three statistics for TEAM A by basketball league averages are lower than normal.   All three statistics for TEAM B by hockey league averages are higher than normal.  Knowing the sport is essential to interpret the data.  Expanding this to a sport like golf, bowling or horse racing, the three criteria above take on little to no relevance.  The sport not only dictates how to interpret the data for investment but also the criteria to utilize itself.

The same is true for ESG criteria.  The criterion is specific to each industry (each sport).  The investor sustainability criteria for each organization are highly dependent on the industry. Measuring external air pollution is a good criterion for a manufacturing facility but not highly relevant to a bank.  Optimizing routes to reduce fuel use is a good criterion for a 3^rd party logistics firm but plays less of a role as a sustainability factor for a healthcare facility.  Finding innovative solutions to reduce plastic waste is a worthy criterion to evaluate a packaging company but not relevant for an insurance agency.    

With a different set of criteria per industry, it becomes hard to standardize reporting.  Without standardized reporting, it is hard to compare.  When it is hard to compare, investment decisions based on ESG factors become muddled.

Where is all this going?  Likely toward standard reporting for some overriding common criteria factors relevant for most organizations.   Factors like greenhouse gas emissions (recent SEC Rule is the first attempt), employee health and wellbeing, safety, and data security. 

Other criteria more specific to each organization and industry are likely left to voluntary disclosure.  (at least for now)

Reporting and disclosures allow investors —- capital investors, employees, customers, communities, regulation —  to better “price” the criteria into their investment decision.   Organizations who score poorly on sustainability measures are adversely affected by investment from stakeholders.   Those who score better, are likely rewarded with higher returns and valuations.

ESG as a straight-line universal indicator to future returns can be hard to follow.  ESG as a specific criterion is not.  A criterion applied to each industry, location and individual organization to allow all investors (stakeholders) to better allocate their investments (time, money, interests).

Determining the criterion for your industry and organization is the first step towards addressing any shortcomings.  Authentic actions to address shortcomings becomes a strategy to drive both value and resilience  — each keeps  and attracts investors of all kinds.

I sank to the back of the group.  People’s instinct for bunching closer to the guide and my purposeful slow pace combined to offer me time and space to better experience the focus of our visit.  I have been on two other tours like this one. One in Albany, New York and the other in Napa, California.  These two visits dispelled the notion that the subjects we came to see did not exist.  News stories of the subjects being pushed aside with no apparent value or worse buried alive were not hard to find.  Going to these two places restored my confidence that at least some of the subjects had more life in them and were being saved.  This tour in Austin, Texas was different.    

I had never been this close.  At certain points, I could reach over the railing to touch them as they zipped by.  The signs to keep hands inside the guardrails and cameras scanning the facility were enough of a deterrent for my eyes to be the only ones to breech the restricted area.  The guide walked and talked us through the half mile maze.  We had all been exposed to a common narrative of the subjects being neglected, mislabeled, and thrown away like they had no value at all.  The tour revealed the opposite.  A place that valued the subjects, helped them find their own kind where they could combine to create something new.      

We witnessed how the innovative processes and employees stationed along the path helped each individual subject find their way through the labyrinth.  The tour guide said about 85% of the subjects are recovered.  Those too damaged, too contaminated, or worse not designed to be recovered comprise the unsalvageable 15%.     

As we exited the network of pathways, we saw the successful result.  The subjects had found their own kind and sat in warehouse bays awaiting pickup by someone who wanted them.  Subjects were loaded onto trucks and routed to a new owner, a new life, hoping to return one day to a facility like this one.

The tour was of a material recovery facility and the subjects were recyclables. After picking up from community curbside bins and local businesses, truck after truck unloaded mixed recyclables in a cavernous warehouse.  The drop off point quickly becomes a growing mountain of material.  The pyramid shaped pile extends ninety plus feet wide to about thirty feet high.  Metal cans, plastic milk jugs, glass pickle jars, plastic sacks, butter tubs, egg crates, cardboard boxes, tissue paper, ketchup bottles, peanut butter containers, plastic paint trays, juice pouches, pasta boxes, jelly jars, yogurt cups and newspapers are some of the pieces that make up the jumbled pile.  The amount and variety of materials was overwhelming.  My awareness of our consumptive society has never been more acute than watching the massive heap balloon in size with every drop off.

As the trucks add to the pile, front loaders take from it and drop materials onto conveyor belts to feed the sorting system.  The conveyors provide a controlled, constant flow of material into and through the sequenced sortation process.  The system consists of manual pickers, trommel screens, disc screens, magnets, air jets, optical sorters, glass breakers and robotics all used to separate like materials as they weave through apparatus in the 100,000 square foot building.  The facility processes 165,000 tons of material each year. 

By the end, the unsorted mound of material is transformed into neat bundles of uniformity ready for sale.  The experience reminded me of a shuffled deck of playing cards.  Sorting fifty-two cards by suit and then in ascending order gives structure to the deck making it easier to determine if any cards are missing.  Every card is valuable.   In material recovery facilities, hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds are plastic, metal, glass, and paper.  Just like each card in a deck, every piece of material is treated as valuable in the facility.

Recycling is happening — the three trips in three states to material recovery facilities provided experiential evidence.  There are over one thousand similar facilities across the United States. 

My confidence in mass recycling gained from my trips is crushed by statistics of the larger mosaic.   A recent study from The Recycling Partnership finds the United States residential recycling rate is approximately 21%.   Five states — California, Connecticut, New York, and Oregon — have rates of 30% or above.   Five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Nebraska — are below 10%. 

The report stated seven out of ten cardboard boxes, three out of four milk jugs, four out of five steel cans, three out of four tons of mixed paper and seven out of ten glass bottles, aluminum cans and PET plastic bottles are in trash bins in homes. 

The truth hurts.  The twenty-one percent statistic provides the vociferous recycling critic ammunition to downplay its long-term viability.  

What?  How can this be?  I witnessed the process.  Three facilities in three states all recycle roughly 85% of what they receive and many more do the same. 

In short, most recyclables never get to a facility to be processed.   The report points to a lack of access to recycling services, lack of education and communication as primary causes for the low overall recycling rates.  Of the 73% of all U.S households that have recycling access, 59% use the service.   The goal is to provide more access to those without and to have those with access to use it.

Government policy for access and funding like extended producer responsibility (EPR) and industry investment are two solutions in the report. 

What cannot be lost in the potential solution set is the role of the individual.  The tour guide’s final words provide a hidden path for individuals to contribute. 

“If you’re not buying recycled content, you’re not recycling.”

The comment personalized recycling on both the supply and demand side.  I have mostly viewed my ordinary participation in recycling from the supply side.  Our household creates a supply of recycled materials by filling our weekly curbside pickup bin and hoping an unseen infrastructure collects it, sorts it, and sells it to make something else. 

I now realize I also create the demand. When I buy recycled content in pants, packaging, toys, furniture, carpets, bikes, appliances, paper, shirts, napkins, car parts, fencing, bags, delivery boxes, hairbrushes, sneakers, and shampoo bottles, I increase the demand for recyclables.  The demand pulls the recyclables through the system.  The recyclables I witnessed racing by on conveyor belts are sorted and sold to fill a demand.  A demand I in part create when I buy recycled content items.

Recycling is an interdependent system and thus will never be perfect.  Alignment of government policy, corporate actions, and consumer behavior leads to greater awareness, education, and behaviors to support the whole.  More access to the system for those without and higher participation for those with results in more material to recycling facilities to let them do what they do at a high rate of success —- sort material to re-sell.  It is less a sorting issue and more of a collection issue.  Get the facilities more material while driving the economics in what is purchased.

Imperfections in the interdependent system and the low overall recycling rate headline can call into question the effectiveness of recycling, particularly to the individual.   Is recycling worth the effort?  The EPA website outlines the many benefits of recycling including reducing the amount of waste to landfills, conserving natural resources, preventing pollution by reducing the need to collect new materials, using domestic sources of material supply, reducing the environmental impacts of materials across their lifecycle, supporting American manufacturing, and creating jobs in recycling and manufacturing industry.  Jobs in facilities like the three I visited. 

While better alignment of policy and business is much needed and hastens progress, the individual will always be a critical piece.  The truth is we each affect the supply side and the demand side of recycling in our daily decisions on every item we dispose of and purchase.  The truth is material recycling facilities all over the United States recover 85% of what they receive. 

These truths help to ditch the malaise, to counter the low overall recycling rate statistic to provide each of us motivation to act.  Act by giving extra attention to those ordinary decisions to view them as important, not inconsequential.  

Resources:

Number of recycling facilities in the U.S:  https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/number-of-businesses/recycling-facilities-united-states/

Texas recycling facility:  https://resource-recycling.com/recycling/2020/02/14/facility-focus-balcones-resources/

Recycling statistics: https://recyclingpartnership.org/residential-recycling-report/

Benefits of recycling: www.epa.gov/smm/recycling-economic-information-rei-report

In today’s business landscape, sustainability isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a fundamental aspect of building and growing a successful enterprise. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, the importance of embracing sustainable practices cannot be overstated. This guide is here to help you navigate the path toward creating and expanding a green business, offering practical insights and strategies that are both eco-friendly and economically sound.

Start with a good idea. Creating a workable idea for a green business involves identifying a need in the market, and finding a sustainable way to meet that need. It’s important to consider how your business cooperate in an environmentally friendly manner, while also delivering value to customers. This could be anything from a recycling service to a store selling eco-friendly products, or a consultancy helping other businesses reduce their environmental impact. Research is key – look at successful green companies for inspiration and use online resources to identify emerging trends and opportunities in the green sector.

Assess and reduce your carbon footprint. Everyone has a carbon footprint, but the goal is to ensure that it’s as small as possible. This might mean finding an office or retail space that allows you to utilize energy-efficient lighting, technology, and appliances or working remotely to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Depending on the type of workplace you’ll be creating, Green Business Network notes that you may need to simply make sure you practice conscientious habits and practices, such as powering off equipment when it’s not in use or using ethically-sourced materials for your products and supplies.

Create a plan for costs and funding. Once you know what equipment and space you need, you can start working on a budget and making financial projections. This will help you secure the right funding, whether it comes from a
loan, crowdfunding platform, or grants. While the startup costs vary for green businesses depending on where they’re located and the type of supplies that are used, you should factor in how you will get you started with important options for software, renting an office, or retail space, and building up your inventory.

Launch in the right place. Choosing the right location to launch your green business is a critical decision. This involves considering factors like local market demand, availability of resources, and supportive environmental regulations. Areas with a strong focus on sustainability and a community that values eco-friendly initiatives could be ideal. Explore your housing options online to get an idea of living costs in these areas, as this can impact both your personal finances and business expenses. Websites offering rental and sale listings can provide a good starting point.

Create a sustainable marketing plan. Effective marketing is crucial for growing a sustainable green business. Content marketing, in particular, can be a powerful tool. By creating valuable, informative, and engaging content that
highlights your commitment to sustainability, you can not only educate your audience but also establish your business as an industry authority.

Use social media, blogs, videos, and other content channels to showcase your eco-friendly products or practices, share success stories, and connect with like-minded consumers. Visit Cornerstone Content to learn more about content marketing and how to put it in practice.

The journey of building and growing a sustainable green business is not only feasible but also immensely rewarding. By following the insights and strategies outlined in this guide, you can take meaningful steps toward creating a business that aligns with environmental values, meets the demands of a conscious consumer market and ensures long-term success.

Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) event Boston 2023 Sept 23rd to 25th 2023

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) Boston event brought together over 500 member organizations (companies, non for profits, government etc) to offer information and insights to move packaging in a more sustainable direction.  The event is a mix of educational sessions, speakers, tours to local sustainable businesses and trade show.  I have been attending these events since our company joined the SPC in 2019.

The authentic changes for all organizations differ but the direction does not. The direction is moving towards less emissions, less waste, more understanding, and more inclusion. All of these are required for systems to change. No one organization can do it alone, yet all play a starring role.

Here is a sampling of the sessions from the three-day event.

Examples of tours of local organizations:

• Keurig Dr Pepper HQ R&D tour and coffee tasting
• Waste Management Billerica MRF (Material Recovery Facility)
• Fenway Park Tour
• Black Earth Compost* I attended this one…see below.
• EREMA Tech Center
• Ocean Spray and Bog Tour
• Wellesley Recycling and Disposal facility

Examples of educational sessions:

• Compostable Pods going mainstream: how brands are driving compostable materials to scale
• Landscape of 2023 EPR legislation
• How food service and retailers are tackling Massachusetts organic’s diversion law
• Designing and developing sustainable healthcare packaging
• Circular packaging case studies from leading retailers.
• A new carbon economy: Innovating to a post pollution future.
• We can’t recycle our way out of climate change…so let’s change the message.
• Oregon’s recycling modernization act and implications for packaging
• Meet the PRO: what’s next for EPR Implementation
• States leading the drive for safer chemicals and materials
• Advancing sustainability in a changing world

Black Earth Composting:  I toured Black Earth Composting’s newest facility which is set to open in two months. Black Earth picks up compostable waste from regional organizations and sells made compost mainly to farmers. Currently, more of their revenue comes from pickups than selling compost.  To make compost, the right mix of air, water and temperature combines to activate microorganisms. The new facility helped reveal the process in showing the air and moisture piping infrastructure beneath the piles of compostable waste that would begin to arrive soon. The open-air covered structure had multiple bays where compostable material sits and moves multiple times in a process which hastens organic waste breakdown. In the final bay, the once pile of twigs, organic waste, leaves and compostable packaging transforms into compost for farmers. Organic waste laws have aided the growth of composting in Massachusetts.

In 2014, the regulation went into place whereby any organization who generated 1 ton of organic waste per week would have to avoid the landfill through finding other means of disposal:  feeding people in need, composting, anaerobic digestion, or animal feed.  In 2023, the mandate dropped to half ton per week. In the years to come, the mandate will continue to drop which will cause an increasing number of people to legally have to divert their organic waste away from landfills. Scaling the law over 10 plus years has provided the time for building awareness, education and composting infrastructure.

Our tour guide who was also the owner of the company was asked “does certified compostable packaging compost like other organics?”   With no hesitation, the answer was “yes as long as it is certified compostable.“  He went on to relay that the issue is not does certified compostable packaging compost because it does under the right conditions.  The issue is consumer confusion as to what is and is not compostable — keeping organic waste streams “clean” of non-compostable packaging allows more effective composting. The guide also advocated for all packaging touching food to be compostable. While seemingly unrealistic at least for now, it would reduce contamination in organic waste stream and increase food scrap collection.

Notes from sessions attended:

• When we compost, we are essentially recycling carbon. 
• The Sustainable Packaging Coalition operates on 4 pillars:  innovation, policy, packaging design, recovery.
• Between 1 in 5 and 1 in 7 Americans suffer from food insecurity. 35% of food is wasted.  Lovin’ Spoonful’s is a Boston based company who connects food leftovers and waste (restaurants, schools, grocery stores) and distributes it to those in need. The speaker said hunger is not about supply as there is plenty of food — it’s about distribution. 
• PSI — Product Stewardship Institute is a national non-profit organization focused on consumer product and packaging.  PSI is heavily involved in consulting states on EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) laws and organizations to help compliance.
  • 135 EPR laws have been passed in the U. S. —18 in packaging.  EPR laws are a rising trend. 
  • Main drivers:  The EPR legislation ground for packaging has been plowed by items like paint, mattresses and carpets that have already experienced regulation.  This combined with no longer exporting plastics packaging recyclables and anti-plastic backlash has created fertile ground for packaging EPR. 
  • 4 states have laws in place —  ME, CA, CA, & OR
  • Proposed bills in a lot of states
  • Who is affected?  brand? converter?  film maker?  It varies from state to state and product to product.  All will be touched to some degree.  Reporting will likely be “waste based” reporting.  Composition of the packaging will affect what organization’s pay.  By example, what fits easily in recycling streams will be charged less.
• Advancing sustainability in a changing world: John Wilson presented and is the Amcor sustainability manager.  Amcor spends over 100 million a year on R&D.
  • Three things to consider:  there will always be a role for packaging, requirements of packaging are increasing, and responsible packaging is the answer.
  • Pressures to change come from…. climate change, consumer recognition of waste, plastics in ocean, retailer mandates (Walmart, Amazon Loblaw etc), golden design rule #6 (which calls for increasing the recycling value of flexible consumer products) and legislative changes.
• Interview: Monique Oxender Chief Corporate Affairs Officer — Kuerig/Dr Pepper
  • Look for areas to improve your sustainability impact not only what you control but also where you have influence.
  • Collaboration is key.  Partnership key in goal setting. 
  • We need and look for innovation in our supply chain.
  • Be curious.  Keep asking why and how.
  • Infrastructure, education, access.  Example:  Just because an item is compostable, does not mean it will be composted.  We need to be curious to help solve how to help educate, help access and help infrastructure to composting. 
• Driscoll’s walking the walk:
  • Driscoll’s fruit company—-PET clamshell really helped Driscoll’s become a leader in the fruit (strawberries, blueberries etc.) industry over the last decade.  But now the PET clamshell is viewed as evil in an anti-plastic world.   Packaging must allow consumers to see the berries and protect the fruit.  A task force was created to change and reduce packaging impact.  They did 4 things:
    • Reduced material used in clamshells.  Use of PCR
    • Did a Life Cycle Analysis to determine clamshell had a lower overall environmental impact than alternatives.
    • Devoted resourced to helping close recycling loops for clamshells.
    • Reduced/Reconsidered secondary and tertiary packaging.
• SpecRight…. Laura Foti
  • What was… Spreadsheets and pdfs, One time reporting, Profits over sustainability, fewer SKUs
  • What is…. Digital data, real-time, sustainability as a mandate, SKU zilla  (speaks to innovation)

• Want to make decision making faster.  How?  With better more accurate data.  Sustainability software helps.
  • Goal is less data chasing and more time innovating.

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) has multiple events each year and lots of educational resources.

For more information (or membership application), visit www.sustainablepackaging.org.

Even though the SEC climate disclosure rules continue to be delayed, at some point, there will likely be some rules surrounding reporting on carbon for publicly traded companies.  The rule will likely have a far-reaching scope and cause change for years to come.  The fact that we are wondering when the rule(s) will be finalized and enacted and not if a set of rules will ever be created is a major step to indicate that more and more people are onboard with why change is needed.  Other indications of more people understanding why sustaaibility is important can be seen in everyday occurrences like more electric car re-charging stations being built, clothes being made of recycled content, and solar and wind energy growing in capacity. 

Now the question is how.  How do organizations adapt to new rules be they environmental, social or governance rules to the changing landscape of business and reporting on those non-financial factors.  More importantly, how do organizations stay ahead of regulation and build resilience within their organizations to more easily change because they have already anticipated it.

Adopting sustainability as a strategic part of organizational planning offers a means to build value and resilience.  For whatever sustainability issue(s) you are addressing, here are 8 steps in brief to help define important issues and take authentic actions.

Step 1:  Current State.   What is already being done?

Step 2:  Benchmark:  Gather information from multiple sources to gain an understanding of what others in the market are already doing and how your organization compares. 

Step 3:  Stakeholder Engagement.   Surveys, collaboration, and interviews all are means of engagement.  Engage with stakeholders to determine what is most important to them.

Step 4:  Materiality:  Determine and/or prioritize the sustainability issue(s) most important to stakeholders and the business.  A materiality assessment is a formal way to help in this process. 

Step 5:  Implement Process Changes:   Solution(s) to issues identified in Step 4 are integrated into the appropriate system or process within the organization.  The response from management must align with the reason the issue is important to the organization and its stakeholders. 

Step 6: Internal Education and Rollout:  Before external communication, first train and report internally.  Communicate internally about sustainability issues, which issues are critical, why, and how processes and systems will be changed or developed.

Step 7:  External Communication:  Report back to stakeholders on how the issue(s) are being addressed. 

Step 8:  Periodic Review:  Evaluate the results to see if there are gaps to fill.  This is an iterative process — as new information is gained, repeat appropriate steps.

As sustainability plans are established, gain traction and are seen as a source of innovation, opportunity and risk reduction, the culture and purpose of the business changes.  Sustainability moves from initiatives to the engine that drives the purpose of the organization.   

With more regulation to come, why sustainability turns into how sustainability.  The 8 steps above provide a framework of how to implement a sustainability program and/or address sustainability issues.

written by trent romer

Being immersed in the field of sustainability as a business owner, salesperson, consultant, speaker and author for years, I find the word “sustainability” is met with three general reactions.  My amateur non-verbal people reading skills aside, I see wide eyed enthusiasts (“You go — I feel the same way”), contemplative look (“I’m interested and digesting the information”), and you lost me at sustainability (“I’m not feeling it”).

Maybe this helps those latter two groups:  You don’t have to call it sustainability.

You can make your product or deliver your service using existing or renewable sources to sell to new markets looking for alternatives.  You don’t have to call it a sustainable product or service.

You can reduce your internal waste and reap the benefits of needing less material, saving energy and using less labor.  You don’t have to qualify it as a sustainability initiative.

You can change the chemicals you use from those creating hazardous waste to something that results in something more benign.   You don’t have to call it a sustainable chemical policy.

You can survey the company stakeholders to determine the issues most material to the business.  You don’t have to call it a sustainability questionnaire.

You can invest in the training of employees, in holding company events and in making safety a priority to reduce employee turnover.  You don’t have to call it a social objective to your sustainability program.

You can engage with the community to build employee culture and your brand’s reputation.  You don’t have to call it a sustainability action.

You can track progress on all the above.  You don’t have to call it governing the company’s sustainability efforts.  

You can measure a portion of your success by striving for longer term goals like reducing carbon emissions, diverting waste from landfills, raising employee happiness, and introducing new more sustainable products into the marketplace.  You don’t have to call it meeting your sustainability goals.

You can call it a good business decision, a way to reduce risk, a means to find new opportunities, a way to attract and keep talent, and a vehicle to drive innovation.  You can call it engaging in authentic actions to address the issues most important to the business and its stakeholders.  You can call it a strategic plan to help the company sustain itself into the future.   

You don’t have to call it sustainability but if you are asked “do you have a sustainability program?” and you are doing some of the above, you can simply say “yes.”

Clear View Packaging and the Circular Economy

A circular economy refers to a regenerative economic system whereby waste, and process by-products are turned into new inputs for new products. The regeneration is achieved through material choice, long lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling.

The circular economy perspective is in contrast to a linear economy view. A linear economy takes materials from the earth, makes something with them and then disposes of them. A linear economy seems to fit much of how we view products today. Oft times, the end-of-life disposal of products we all use tend to find their way to landfills in the US (or more typically incineration in Europe). The convenience of disposability combined with the low cost of many items tends to lead to linear thinking and systems. 

Domestic collection systems keep the linear economy disposable society hidden from public view. Where collection systems are not found in various locations throughout the world, the disposal of products and packaging tend to be found in the natural environment and in our waterways. Non-collected disposal is often referred to as leakage. Leakage is visible in our oceans and our lands. The goal of a circular economy is to eliminate leakage and all waste through closed loop systems.

Closed loop systems seek to acquire the product at the end of its life, reprocess the collected materials in some way and then re-market the new products made to begin the cycle again. The waste from the 1st generation product forms the raw materials for the next product. If any of these steps are missed, we do not have a closed loop. If we cannot collect the items, if we cannot reprocess the items or if we cannot re-market the items, we do not have a closed loop system. Without closing the loop, used products become “linear” and wind up in landfills or in the natural environment as leakage.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG’s) are goods designed to have a short life span and are in constant rotation.  Products that flow (like packaging) requires different strategies for circular value creation than durable goods like electronics or furniture.  

Five Strategies for FMCG Circular Flows

1. REDUCE: Whenever a product depends on its package in order to be used (ingredients, nutritional’s, safety, branding etc) the package is an integral part of the product and is difficult to eliminate.  When a package is needed, reduce the amount of the package size or weight if possible.   Using less material is always the best choice. Less material means less energy used in creation, less energy used in transport and less material to collect at end of life. 
2. REUSE: When possible, collecting, cleaning, and reusing packaging items for the same purpose is desired.
3. RENEWABLE & EXISTING SOURCES: Using existing or renewable materials in packaging at creation provides a more circular flow of the package.  Incorporating post-consumer or post-industrial recycled content or biobased raw materials into the package drives demand for existing and renewable sources and lowers carbon emissions.
4. END of LIFE: RECYCLE or COMPOST   Using material that has a chance for a circular end of life  keeps materials in use and out of landfills.   Labeling packages helps the end user know what to do with the package at disposal
5. RETHINK Closing loops keep materials in use. Partnering with others to use by products from one process to make other items gives items a next life.

Clear View Packaging produces custom packaging for FMCG’s. Clear View sustainable offerings try to connect to the strategies above.

REDUCE:    Clear View can sample alternative materials, lighter gauges, and sizes to limit any excess material. Sampling is a big part of the business and are available upon request.

REUSE:   Clear View specializes in a lot of lower volume work. We re-use/re-purpose excess material from one job to use for another. Clear View also has a line of stock bubble zip locks made specially for reuse.   Bags made of thicker materials can also be custom made and printed to promote reuse.

RENEWABLE & EXISTING SOURCES:  Clear View manufactures biobased material,  Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) material and Post- Industrial Recycled content (PIR) material.    Clear View stocks some of these materials to allow for lower volume orders.

END of LIFE:  98% of the products Clear View manufactures is recyclable at end of life.  Clear View also stocks certified compostable material.  Clear View also can help recommend labeling options to print on the package to give the materials the best chance for a next life.

RETHINK:  Closing loops by returning used materials, wickets, cores , boxes etc allows these materials to remain in the economy.  Clear View looks to collaborate with like-minded partners who would like to return by-products of their process for reuse or recycling.   

There are no perfect solutions but moving toward a more circular economy of material flows seem the clear direction. There is a tremendous opportunity for converters like us to be a part of a movement toward more sustainable, more responsible, and more “circular” way of looking at packaging. A circular economy for packaging incorporates systematic thinking on everything from design to raw materials we source to how we convert those raw materials to end of life thinking for the packaging we produce.

We will continue to post blogs to help educate to bring awareness and in turn hopefully meaningful actions by more people.

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition is the largest North American organization striving to move packaging in a more sustainable direction. Six hundred plus member companies, non-governmental organizations and government groups gathered in San Francisco in April 2022. Off-site day trips combined with multiple speakers, break-out sessions, and networking to provide a 3-day educational experience to motivate, to challenge and to inspire attendees to move their organizations towards sustainability.

A consistent theme throughout the conference was the need to close loops. Closing loops involves intercepting items at the disposal stage to feed them back into the creation of a new product. No waste is the goal. The waste for one process becomes a feedstock for another in a circular system.

Closed loops take a wide variety of forms. Bottle deposit programs, recycling in curbside bins and composting are a common means to recover products at the end of life to avoid landfills. Each business has its own closed loop systems to discover. Anything a company ships or currently landfills can be a potential source for circularity. Closing loops takes collaboration.

Collaboration can take a multitude of partners including clients, vendors, and the government. An example of collaboration to enable circularity of organic materials is California state bill 1383. The bill sets a target to reduce disposal of organic waste in landfills, including edible food. The goal is to reduce statewide organic waste by 75% by January 2025.

The bill addresses key statistics.

• forty percent of food is wasted
• approximately 1 in 4 Californians are struggling with food insecurity
• food waste accounts for 8% of global emissions (food waste in landfills creates methane and carbon dioxide)

State bill 1383 includes a few general mandates. 

1. Qualifying food service businesses must donate edible food to food recovery organizations.
2. Organics are to be separated, collected, and turned into compost.
3. Municipalities must procure compost to each person in each municipality. The composter has a market to sell their compost.

The policy helps feed the hungry, enables the composting industry to grow, prevents greenhouse gas emissions and diverts organics away from the landfill.

The policy ties municipalities, food service businesses, consumers, composters, and the state government together to tackle food shortages and emissions.

The collaboration guided by policy allows the organics loop a better chance to be closed in California. In practice, it is not easy as many things must align for the intended policy to take full effect. It takes a long time.

Packaging can do a lot to aid in reducing food waste.

1. Printing on the package ideas of what to do with leftovers, how to dispose of organics and the impact of organics in landfills informs the consumer.
2. Reclosable packaging features provide for ease in using more of the contents over time.
3. Material makeup can elongate shelf life without impacting end of life recovery streams.
4. At times, more packaging can prevent food waste. For example, a wheel of cheese sold in bulk has a high chance of not being fully consumed. That same block packaged in 6 to 8 “pie shaped” packages can be consumed in smaller lots without affecting the larger amounts shelf life. There is an environmental tradeoff off food waste verse amount packaging. Each situation mandates looking at the tradeoffs to determine which alternative offers a better environmental choice.

Walking away from the conference, closing loops in ways we can are what we are all called to do. Closing loops requires innovation in material choice and in supply chains and collaboration with others

The streets of San Francisco are often steep. Crazy steep. It is like walking up a black diamond rated downhill skiing trail. At the heights of these streets can find breathtaking views of the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. The sustainably journey can feel like walking the streets of San Francisco:  A steep climb to treasure of clean air, clean water, and clean land. #spc #sustainablepackagingcoalition #greenblue #sustainability