Metrics on Sustainable Packaging Released

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), a project of the nonprofit sustainability institute GreenBlue, has released its Sustainable Packaging Indicators and Metrics Framework Version 1.0.

The Metrics Framework, designed to help companies measure progress toward SPC’s Definition of Sustainable Packaging, provides a wide range of indicators and metrics that are organized into eight categories — material use, energy use, water use, material health, clean production and transport, cost and performance, community impact and worker impact.

A primary reason the SPC undertook the Framework project was to respond to marketplace concerns about the proliferation of individual company sustainable packaging metrics and scorecards. “

"Without consistent guidance, sustainability criteria vary significantly from one company to the next,” said GreenBlue Senior Fellow Katherine O’Dea, chief author of the framework. “This lack of coordination has made the data collection process time consuming and costly for suppliers, as well as making it difficult for companies to consistently benchmark their performance over time. Our hope is the Metrics Framework will standardize how the industry measures its progress toward making packaging more sustainable.”

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