Source : Sealed Air Corporation

Smartlife® Sustainability Consultancy Services has performed a specific life cycle assessment (LCA) at Agriform, an important cheese customer of Sealed Air Corporation, located in Italy. The study looked into the role packaging has in improving the sustainability of hard cheese portion packs along the entire supply chain and highlighted key carbon footprint reduction drivers such as:

• Reduced packaging weight;
• Reduced package volume;
• Allocation of carbon footprint of secondary packaging to more packs per box;
• Allocation of transport emissions to more packs per truck.

In addition, the study identified a significant sustainability “hot spot”, which is the relationship between quantity of grated cheese produced (lower value by-product as a result of chunk production process) and the type of packaging requested by market.

This full life cycle case study took into account four types of packaging for a consumer unit cheese pack, sold at retail level:

• Rigid thermoforming combined to modified atmosphere;
• Rigid thermoforming under vacuum;
• Vacuum shrink bag;
• Vacuum shrink film.

For more details, see the file below.

About Us

Sealed Air’s Smartlife® approaches sustainability holistically so that we can ensure value is delivered throughout the entire life cycle. Our commitment to sustainability is rooted in the desire to enable our customers and their customers - to make Smart choices that are focused on three critical dimensions of sustainability:

• Elimination of waste;
• Conservation of energy;
• Reduction of raw material use.

Sealed Air Smartlife® Sustainability Solutions provides the packaging and distribution industry with qualified/quantified data regarding the sustainability of the packaging solutions being considered. Our customers utilize the results we obtain through the assessment of a products or processes life cycle to understand the financial, environmental, and social impacts that surround each of the alternatives. They then use this information to make sound and more sustainable business decisions that may lead them to; decreased cost, increased performance, and improved image.


See also the following video file (.wmv; 5,7MB)