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More Work Needed on LCA
November 1, 2008 By: Kristin Smith Official Board MarketsCorrugated packaging executives expecting to hear the results of the industry’s Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) during the “Sustainable Business Executive Briefing and Conference” Oct. 22 and 23 in Chicago, were told the study is not yet complete. Executives were to have been given a sneak preview of the results prior to Pack Expo, Nov. 9-13.
“Critical review panel comments necessitated additional data collection,” says John Heckman, director of Five Winds International.
He expects the additional data collection will be complete for Pack Expo and that a draft report will be complete by the end of November. The entire study is expected to be complete in January.
“There is nothing simple about this topic,” emphasizes Dwight Schmidt, president, Fibre Box Association (FBA). “It is continually unfolding as we work on it every day.”
The results of the LCA are highly anticipated by the industry as it will provide one source of information for the industry to use in the marketplace, adding to the industry’s credibility. Having a universal resource for information will be a significant marketing tool for the industry as it positions itself as the sustainable packaging solution.
How to market the sustainability aspect of corrugated packaging was also discussed during the conference. Jon DeWitt, partner, Artemis Strategy Group, provided some insights in developing a marketing strategy for sustainability.
“It’s one of the things people are most interested in hearing about,” he says. “Because of what you do and how you do it, you have to talk about it.”
He says that corrugated packaging positively impacts the environment in so many ways. He advises that when developing a message not to stray too much from sustainability and to stay away from specific metrics. It is safer ground to just lay out the idea.
Sustainability is the way that the corrugated packaging industry has always done business, he says, pointing out that the recycling symbol was developed by the industry and is “baked into the way you do business.”
He says the industry has a sustainable track record and needs to stand up and serve as an inspiration.
Cheryl Young of Cypress Communications and Rachel Kenyon, director of member and industry relations with FBA, provided tools to those in attendance in the form of a pamphlet of information and a CD-ROM containing industry sustainability information that could be applied to a specific company’s marketing campaign and shared with customers and employees.OBM
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