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Well, in truth, all companies involved may know a lot about "green" packaging, but let's face it: extra costs have kept their growth even below minimum. However, Wal-mart is forcing the issue and may single-handedly turn the packaging tides from brown and dirty to green and clean! Even if you don't supply to Wal-mart, if their initiatives are successful—and I'm betting they will be—their methods are likely to trickle down to all levels of packaging and influence the way their suppliers package their goods. It is, once again, politically correct, to talk about how to achieve a cleaner environment, and you can bet politicians will try to pass their own laws. Two companies in the optical media industry who are very excited to talk about "green solutions" are Multi Packaging Solutions (MPS) and Shorewood Packaging. MPS EVP of operations Dennis Kaltman says, "Wal-Mart has certainly elevated the focus on green packaging in the entertainment industry. Customer interest in options for environmentally friendly packaging has been very strong as they work to address Wal-mart's environmental initiative." In conjunction with Earth Day, MPS will launch what it deems earth-friendly print and packaging. They intend to certify all manufacturing facilities to Forest Stewardship Council standards for sustainable forestry. According to MPS, their new line includes print, packaging, and material options that reduce material usage, eliminate plastic, and incorporate up to 100% post-consumer waste. The main product in the line is the CD/DVD package that features a recycled paperboard tray, available in white or with custom-printed graphics. All components are made by MPS. Also included in the product line are soy-based inks and matte aqueous coatings. Greenchoice is a Shorewood initiative. Its "green" tool box, as they call it, includes choices for paper and paperboard, inks and coatings, alternative materials, and special green designs, and they say they are now more "conscious" of their supply chain. For example, International Paper's Everest and Starcote folding carton grades, including SBS, are used for most of Shorewood's packaging, and these boards contain only virgin fiber and are recyclable. Shorewood also uses paper with recycled content for CD and DVD booklets, inserts, and wraps. According to Shorewood, its ink and coatings systems are "green" with little or no waste generated during the manufacturing process. All inks and coatings are certified by suppliers to contain only components that are FDA-listed. All ink systems used by Shorewood are recyclable and fully compatible with water-based and UV coatings. More info is expected to come from Shorewood and all of its competitors. Stay tuned. Which brings me back to Wal-mart. What are they actually doing? I've been trying to get someone from Wal-mart on the phone to talk it through with me, but the best I could get out of them was a lot of paperwork! I thought, however, that it might be worthwhile to at least outline Wal-mart's requirement based on the material I have. Sustainability is the buzzword of the moment. Matt Kistler, VP of packaging and innovations for Sam's Club, offered some definitions at a press briefing held earlier this year. Sustainability as it relates to packaging is about "our actions that we take on today that will affect future actions and the consequences of people's lives … But more importantly it's financial because no matter how many good things we do for the environment, if they are not sustainable for our business, sustainability will not work." Kistler went on to talk about many areas they are trying to change to help the environment, but what matters to this audience is that they have made a commitment to reduce packaging material by 5% by 2013. Doesn't sound like much, but it will reportedly mean 213,000 fewer trucks from being the road, and will save 323,000 tons of coal and over 66 million gallons of diesel fuel. Wal-mart has given its suppliers a scorecard. The first page of the scorecard is for direct supplier information input and it asks the supplier to pick what category his products are sold in. Materials are scored by Wal-mart on the basis of renewablity and energy intensiveness, also its rate of recycling and whether or not it can be incinerated. Of course the values vary depending on the country in which business is conducted. The second page of the scorecard asks for materials-specific information. Wal-mart has defined a selling-unit package as anything that goes out the front of the store with a customer. With this information "we can help municipalities understand what materials are going into their recovery streams," says Amy Zettlemoyer, director of packaging for Sam's Club. Wal-mart also wants to know where the package is coming from, where it is converted, and where it is sold so they may calculate transport distance. Another question has to do with how many materials are in that selling unit. The scorecard also offers an area they call "extra credit." It's an area that awards innovation. For example, "If your converting facility for a package is run off of renewable energy or you're buying energy credits, you can get extra credit there," says Zettlemoyer. After everything is filled out, Wal-mart gives a raw score with a link to show you packaging suppliers that may be able to help improve your score. You also get an overall rank based on how you are relative to your peers. Using the modeling software, you'll be able to figure out how to improve your package. The Packaging Scorecard for Products is located here and the packaging supplier site is found here. After reading through the Wal-mart requirements, I asked Kaltman, "How much will packaging really need to change?" He said, "Changes in materials would be the most noticeable to consumers as packaging is redesigned to reduce material usage, eliminate plastics, and incorporate up to 100% post-consumer waste. Manufacturing practices that are invisible to customers are already underway." For example, in addition to working to RSC-certify its plants, Kaltman says they have also taken the lead in digital printing, which improves air quality by reducing VOC emissions and virtually eliminates ink waste. In general, however, Kaltman says entertainment packaging is relatively benign. Consumers usually keep the packaging. I'm not sure that is true all of the time, but Kaltman does admit there "certainly is room for improvement. Most obvious is the current use of plastic, a material derived from petroleum, a nonrenewable resource. Solutions run the gamut from replacing plastic trays with new designs that reduce the amount to plastic." It's worth noting that plastic is recyclable if the municipalities collect it. And, of course, there are post-industrial waste streams that can be recycled. Once again, however, it comes down to money, and switching from plastic to paper may just be shifting around the problem instead of solving it. In a nutshell, in my opinion, reduction of packaging seems to be a better solution right now than eliminating any particular material. Along with Wal-mart, the closing of landfills will force that issue. Debbie Galante Block is a freelance journalist living in Mahopac, NY. While her areas of concentration have varied widely, she most closely covers music as well as audio and video technologies for magazines such as Billboard, One to One, and Post.
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