A month ago, Tetra Pak began a campaign to force packaging companies to increase supply chain sustainability. Resource efficiency means looking at packaging's entire life cycle, the company emphasized.
"You need to understand your supply chains and what you have in place to mitigate risk. We can't sit back and say there will always be paper available," Mario Abreu, Tetra Pak global director environmental performance, stated.
Tetra Pak set a goal to use 100% Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paperboard, a rise from 38% in 2012 and 41% in 2013. Currently, its cartons are on average made of 70% paperboard, a renewable resource from responsibly managed forests. It has also launched bio-based plastic caps and packaging coating made from polyethylene from sugar cane.
This week, Tetra Pak, launched a campaign called Moving to the Front, to raise industry awareness of the importance of the front end of the packaging life cycle — the sourcing of renewable materials — and is calling on the consumer goods industry and the packaging industry to extend its environmental considerations beyond recycling, lightweighting and disposal and commit to prioritising renewability.
The campaign highlights the need for companies to take on board the importance of material sourcing in protecting natural resources and to understand how these practices can create long-term shared value for businesses and society.
"While recycling will continue to be a key part of a restorative circular economy, it is not the only component," stated Elisabeth Comere, director, environment and government affairs at Tetra Pak.
"As we have always seen it, renewability, which is using a resource that can be regrown or replenished naturally over time, such as paperboard-based packaging and bio-based polyethylene, can have a positive impact on our global economic stability and the ongoing health and biodiversity of our planet."
Tetra Pak has also released a white paper with input from the WWF, which outlines how using renewable resources creates value that can help businesses grow.
Tetra Pak says businesses that commit to renewability practices will:
• Realise business growth because long-term supply resources will be secured and retailer preference and consumer demand for packaging made with renewable materials will grow.
• Manage and mitigate risks caused by geopolitical threats to sourcing more effectively, leading to a more reliable supply chain with less business disruption around supply of resources and better ability to manage costs and experience less price volatility.
• Build brand equity, differentiation and emotional connections with consumers because as consumer knowledge around resource scarcity grows, so too will consumer demand for packaging with renewable content, as it did around recycling.
Tetra Pak's Moving to the Front home page includes this call to action:
"Any actor within the supply chain who directly or indirectly relates to packaging needs to ensure the stability and sustainability of these natural resources in order to help secure business growth, better manage and mitigate against geopolitical threats to supply and build brand equity and more.
"We want to lead a new industry commitment to what we call renewability — protecting natural resources and rewarding best practices and innovations that focus on the front end of the packaging life cycle; practices and innovations that will keep the consumer packaged goods industry strong and viable in an increasingly volatile economy.
"Renewability, as we see it, is about using a resource that can be re-grown or replenished naturally over time, so that there is enough for all, forever. And we think renewability is critical to help offset the environmental and economic strain caused by more of us using scare natural resources to make more."
