From manufacturing to end of life, Tetra Pak is committed to engaging its entire value chain to drive low-carbon circularity. But as VP of Sustainability Jason Pelz explains, just looking at recyclability and recycled content won’t get you there.
In efforts to curb waste, address the climate crisis and respond to resource
scarcity, the food and beverage packaging industries are under pressure to
incorporate more recycled materials into their products. But this singular
emphasis on recycled content overlooks other ways to achieve a low-carbon,
circular
economy:
more bio- or plant-based materials that can be responsibly regrown and require
less energy to manufacture.
“We at Tetra Pak look at things holistically,”
Jason Pelz, VP of Sustainability at Tetra Pak Americas, told
Sustainable Brands™. “We look at [our products] from a life cycle standpoint;
and in our mind, if we can use a plant-based material in the first place we’re
starting at the beginning of the value chain … Using renewable materials is a
key way to achieve that.”
Improving its
products
is an important part of Tetra Pak’s emissions-reduction
targets, leading the
packaging giant to investigate the role renewable, virgin materials must play in
a low-carbon, circular economy.
The case for renewable virgin materials
“By using a plant-based component in your package, you’re beginning the process of lowering the carbon footprint at the beginning of the life cycle.”
A typical Tetra Pak® package contains approximately 74 percent wood fiber, 22
percent polymer and 4 percent aluminum. Non-renewable aluminum — only 4 percent
of the package by weight — makes up approximately 40 percent of a package’s
total carbon footprint — which would be much higher if renewable, plant-based
materials weren’t incorporated from the beginning. Tetra Pak’s ongoing efforts
to replace non-renewable materials such as aluminum and fossil-based polymers
with renewable materials will produce further reductions in CO2e.
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Cradle to gate, a typical Tetra Pak container
emits
just slightly more CO2e than is captured in the material used to produce it. A
competing 570mL plastic pouch, on the other hand,
produces
almost as much C02e during production and transport alone as a Tetra Pak carton
produces throughout its life cycle.
“If we’re really trying to drive a low-carbon, circular economy, you have to
consider plant-based products,” Pelz asserts. “If you take only fossil-based
products and recycle them, at some point you still have virgin inputs — and
fossil-based product inputs have a higher footprint than plant-based.”
Forests regrow and, if managed properly, reduce carbon footprints at the very
beginning of the value chain. All of Tetra Pak’s wood fiber is Forest
Stewardship
Council-certified
— meaning it’s sustainably sourced, safeguards biodiversity, and protects
indigenous rights and
interests.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) footprints vary by package, but one thing is clear:
“If you can add that beginning part as a renewable product, you’ve just lowered
[the carbon footprint] in the initial part of that life cycle,” Pelz explained.
“What we find typically in LCA
studies
is that renewable content will have a lower carbon footprint than fossil-based.”
Why not use recycled material?
“You really have to take the whole value chain into consideration. Just looking at recyclability and recycled content doesn’t get you there.”
While the use of recycled content is important, it focuses on the back end of
the material life cycle; whereas renewable, bio-based materials engage the front
end. Recycling serves circularity, and circularity serves the chief goal of a
carbon-free or carbon-negative economy. But reaching that end needs to start at
materials sourcing and carry on throughout the value chain.
The challenge lies in companies facing logistical barriers to incorporating
renewable materials into their products, or that recyclability takes center
stage
from a policy standpoint.
“We believe that renewable material should have a place in [recycled content
policy] as well; usually in the first draft [of a policy] it’s not there, but
that’s starting to change,” Pelz said. “Usually if they talk about renewable
content, it’s at a high level; but I think it’s something that has to be fully
considered and incorporated.”
Fiber
recyclability
dominates the packaging landscape because it’s been reduced to an oversimplified
equation: Cutting down trees = fewer trees = bad. Recycling = fewer virgin
resources = less waste = good. And while recycling is still a critical goal for
Tetra Pak (the company is on track to have a fully recyclable package made
wholly of renewable or recycled materials by 2030), renewable resource use is a
more nuanced reality. It all starts at the source — where virgin, low-carbon,
plant-based material becomes feedstock for other products.
Tetra Pak containers are an important feedstock for the development of new
products created from recycled cartons. Tetra Pak’s commitment to source
renewable material ensures that its products’ recovered materials start off as
low-carbon and renewable as possible, a legacy that continues down the
circularity pipeline.
If a renewable polymer or fiber can be recycled into itself, you get the best of
both worlds. And that’s the secret sauce to a low-carbon, circular economy:
Start renewable, then recycle.
“You have to have both,” Pelz said. “You can’t look at recycled content or
renewability as the end-all-be-all — you have to have a combination of the two.”
The moral? Use recycled material when you can; and when virgin material is a
must, go for renewable. The result will send ripples down the value chain of
entire industries.
Tetra Pak is committed to reducing its products’ footprint further. Think about
that 4 percent of aluminum owning approximately 40 percent of the package’s
carbon footprint: The company is resolved to finding alternatives to those
non-renewable, carbon-intensive materials used in its products.
“If we could make a change to our packages with that alone, you could blow away
a good chunk of the carbon footprint,” Pelz said.
Aligning goals, success and collaboration
By collaborating with industry groups such as the Carton
Council and other business stakeholders, Tetra
Pak actively engages both ends of circularity from cradle to grave. It’s also
working with its customers to make sure that the process of filling Tetra Pak
cartons is as sustainable as possible. It’s all part of the company’s 2050
climate-neutrality goal, which accounts for the entire value
chain.
“This is something everybody has to be committed to,” Pelz said. “Without
everybody doing it, we can’t make it happen.”
And the motivator? Ethics aside, Tetra Pak, its suppliers and its customers
realize cutting waste, reducing energy consumption and finding renewable
materials saves money in addition to meeting goals.
“Sustainability and reducing our impact on the environment has been key since
the beginning,” Pelz said. “We need to find a way to incorporate more renewable
and recycled content in our packages to help drive that, or we’re not going to
achieve these goals.”
From manufacturing to end of life, Tetra Pak is committed to engaging its entire
value chain to drive circularity.
“There’s a growing population that’s going to need food delivered to them
safely,” Pelz concluded. “We want to make sure that we deliver a package that
not only keeps that food safe, but also has as little impact as possible on the
environment.”
Published Oct 19, 2021 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST
Christian is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, and outdoor junkie obsessed with the intersectionality between people and planet. He partners with brands and organizations with social and environmental impact at their core, assisting them in telling stories that change the world.
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