Renewable packaging: the missing piece in a low carbon puzzle?

The concept of renewable materials – sourcing resources that can be replaced or replenished at a rate equivalent or greater than their use, with minimal environmental damage – also fulfills the internationally accepted definition of sustainability as given by the Brundtland Commission: “[to meet] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

So, why does Defra’s new strategy, which aims to set a clear direction for packaging policy for the next 10 years, miss the opportunity to acknowledge renewable materials, and the significant contribution they can make to a low carbon economy?

Rather than reinforcing the roll of renewable materials, which have been shown to have a low carbon impact over their lifecycle, ‘Making The Most Of Packaging: A Strategy For A Low Carbon Economy’ undermines the whole-life approach by focusing on activities that will encourage greater use of high carbon materials that are currently widely collected for recycling at kerbside. Not only does this go against the spirit of the document, but could have the effect of favouring small gains at end of life over significant carbon savings across the whole life of the packaging.

Modern packaging solutions should make a positive contribution to sustainability. Therefore, the carton industry supports a lifecycle approach to measuring and managing impacts across all stages of the value chain.

Cartons, for example, are made primarily from wood fibre; a natural, renewable resource, and are widely recycled and highly transport-efficient, which means they are repeatedly shown to be a low carbon packaging choice in lifecycle studies across the world.

The continued assumption in the Packaging Strategy against using virgin materials is right in many cases – for products where the extraction of non-renewable materials is harmful or where products are based on unsustainable raw materials. Wood fibre, however, is a renewable material if sourced from managed forests where trees continue to grow without depletion of natural resources. In Nordic countries, where the vast majority of wood fibre for cartons destined for the European market originates, the annual growth exceeds annual harvest.

In such forests, trees that are harvested are replaced both by the planting of young saplings and through natural regeneration. Sweden and Finland have seen consistent forest growth for many years; the volume of growing forest stock in these countries alone has increased from 3.5 billion m3 in 1950 to an estimated six billion m3 today.

As well as being renewable, these managed forests are also effective carbon sinks. So, although there has been a greater demand for wood-based products in recent years, thanks to improved forest management practices such forests produce a greater yield of wood per hectare and thus increasingly absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Young trees in particular absorb carbon effectively. This carbon is then retained within the tree and its future wood pulp products, such as the beverage carton, for the whole life of the product.

A recent study by the Faculty of Biosciences at the University of Helsinki has estimated that from 1990 to 2005, expanding forest biomass in the EU27 sequestered 360–495 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year – corresponding to 8-10 per cent of the EUs fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions .

Furthermore, if sound environmental practices are put in place, after a tree is felled and the logs delivered for industrial use, none of it goes to waste. The bark, sawdust and other by-products resulting from the sawmilling and pulp-making process are used for bio-energy production. This renewable energy corresponds to over 70 per cent of the total energy used at the four European paper mills producing paperboard for beverage cartons. Some paper mills even sell surplus green energy from this process helping to further minimise fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

A move towards carbon-based measurement of packaging is welcomed. This could have significant benefits for the environment and in helping the UK to achieve its stringent carbon reduction targets.

However, by making no commitment to encouraging low carbon, renewable materials and instead focusing only on the recycling of high carbon materials, the Strategy is in danger of failing to deliver its stated objective.