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The sister companies Kapag (Switzerland) and Oppboga (Sweden) support customers in switching from plastic to renewable raw materials with the renewable Changemaker paper and cardboard grades.
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Life cycle assessments have experienced a real boom with the sustainability debate, as they provide information on how environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging, a manufacturing process or a service is. However, the results often lead to misjudgements, says the bifa Umweltinstitut, which has been focussing on this method for 25 years.
If you follow the news from the packaging industry, you will often come across the term „life cycle assessment“. Paper processors, for example, use it to prove that their paper performs better than plastic, while plastic manufacturers see it as confirmation that their film packaging is the best solution for certain applications. And the consumer? They are confused. It's not that simple with life cycle assessments either, says Thorsten Pitschke, project manager at the bifa Umweltinstitut. Good professional practice is described in DIN standards 14040 and 14044, but: „Life cycle assessment is not is not a protected term, and every accountant sets different priorities. Therefore, even results that appear to contradict each other may well be correct.“
Ecological assessment based on gut feeling is not a good idea, This is because an ecological assessment of products, processes or services along the entire life cycle requires a targeted approach. However, good models for life cycle assessments are highly complex. bifa therefore works with professional software, extensive databases, our own data sets and a wealth of experience.
According to the Environmental Institute, the actual ecological significance of issues is often overestimated if they are discussed intensively in public for a long period of time. One example: In the public perception, the advantages of reusable products are seemingly obvious. In fact, an ecological Comparison of single-use and reusable solutions for each individual case. The results are sometimes surprising, as reusable solutions can also perform worse or the differences to disposable packaging may not be that great.
Life cycle assessors take a similarly differentiated view of recycling. The Recycling packaging makes an important contribution to reducing the consumption of raw materials. However, when analysed, non-recyclable packaging made of composite film, which uses less material, can certainly perform better ecologically than recyclable packaging, for which much larger quantities of material are used.
There is no such thing as generally good or bad packaging, says project manager Thorsten Pitschke.
„We always look closely at each individual case: how much material is used here, how many reuses are achieved by reusable packaging and much more. As life cycle assessors, we refrain from making sweeping judgements, because statements such as ‚reusable is better than disposable‘ or ‚paper is more environmentally friendly than plastic‘ are not correct. Every material has advantages and disadvantages.“
Looking at the ecological footprint
Today, only the CO2-footprint and thus the aspect of climate impact. However, life cycle assessments offer the possibility of a BThe environmental impact of the project must be considered and evaluated. However, the results of such an analysis are usually not black or white, but lie in many shades of grey in between. Moreover, life cycle assessment results are always only snapshots. Products and processes with a poor life cycle assessment can improve, and the assessment criteria can also change. Energy consumption is an important factor in many analyses. However, this is where a lot happens in companies: if, for example, a switch is made from coal-fired electricity to renewable energies, this also changes the life cycle assessment. „We therefore run through various scenarios and ask what would change if other energy sources were used or other materials were processed.“
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