The Sustainable Packaging Coallition announced the availability of a new tool, “Compass” allowing companies to benchmark the environmental impact of packaging.

From a sourcing / purchasing perspective, packagingis really the perfect commodity, where Sustainability/CSR can help companies reduce over-specifications, drive innovations and allign “environmental impact reduction” and “cost reduction”.
The most famous case study is maybe the Walmart 5% packaging reduction project, but we here many stories in all industries, from purchasing exectutives having been able to generate postive ROI projects on their Sustainable Packaging initiatives.
The Sustainable Packaging Coallition website, offers very interesting information, including this definition of Sustainable Packaging :

“Sustainable Packaging is :
A. Is beneficial, safe & healthy for individuals and communities throughout its life cycle;
B. Meets market criteria for performance and cost;
C. Is sourced, manufactured, transported, and recycled using renewable energy;
D. Maximizes the use of renewable or recycled source materials;
E. Is manufactured using clean production technologies and best practices;
F. Is made from materials healthy in all probable end-of-life scenarios;
G. Is physically designed to optimize materials and energy;
H. Is effectively recovered and utilized in biological and/or industrial cradle to cradle cycles”