Sustainable Packaging

Jump-Starting Sustainability Efforts

Is your supply chain supporting your sustainable packaging vision?

Written by John Delfausse, Estée Lauder

So, you’re driving sustainable packaging at your company and may be wondering how to jump-start your efforts to make a real difference. Generally your efforts may be to reduce the amount of material for each individual package, or add renewable or recycled content. Perhaps you are looking to specify forestry certifications for your paper or boards, or looking to work with suppliers who use responsible packaging practices such as renewable energy.

This can be a difficult and sometimes lonely process, with your efforts often being blocked by increased costs and pushback from your supply chain.

Surprise, surprise. The very department that may be blocking your opportunities may be your best ally in helping you drive your vision for sustainable packaging.

At The Estée Lauder Companies, we’ve adopted Cradle to Cradle (C2C) as our vision for responsible packaging. We are guided by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s definition of sustainable packaging:

We’ve learned to simplify the C2C concept to three simple ideas:

– Responsible Material Sourcing

– Responsible Manufacturing Practices

– Responsible Product Stewardship

Responsible Material Sourcing helps maximize the renewable or recycled content of your packaging materials and helps to ensure that materials used are healthy in all probable lifecycle scenarios. It can also require that any pulp you use is derived through certified sustainable forestry programs.

Responsible Manufacturing Practices will help ensure that renewable energy is being used at every viable step in a product’s lifecycle. It sets guidelines for your manufacturers to exercise precaution in water usage, pollution of the atmosphere through their stacks and vents, and ensures that they work to recycle any waste in their operations.

Responsible Product Stewardship asks that your suppliers partner with you in designing your packaging for recovery at end-of-life and that they work with you to recycle and recover the materials they produce.

In each of these areas we’ve taken advantage of our strategic suppliers’ relationships with our supply chain team.We get involved when the supply chain puts its strategy together.Because that strategy is managed by supplier category specialists, it’s easy to build sustainability goals at the very beginning for different packaging commodities.For instance, when we have a goal for certified forestry or renewable energy, we strive to make sure that our strategic suppliers are able to make this commitment for us.

The same goes for efforts on recycled content or end-of-life schemes. We would expect that our strategic suppliers would be leaders in driving or joining us in these initiatives. When one supplier partners with us on renewable energy, we expect the others in their category to do the same. If one supplier in a commodity offers 35% PCR in their package, there is a lot of pressure on the rest to offer the same.

By including sustainable principles, the supply chain team can have a huge impact on helping to change our industry. So if you haven’t discussed sustainable packaging with your supply chain lately, make it a point to sit down with them to build a partnership that will deliver huge benefits.While you may be passionate about your job and your vision, you can’t do it alone. Reach out to your supply chain and to potential supplier partnerships in the effort.

About the Author

John A. Delfausse is vice president global package development and chief environmental officer, Estée Lauder Corporate Packaging.