With the right material choices and reliable accurate data, the carbon footprint of pharmaceutical packaging can be significantly reduced. Metsä Board can provide both expert support and lightweight paperboard products to support pharma companies in their carbon footprint reduction efforts.
Carbon reduction with expertise and materials
Trustworthy fact-based data and accurate transparent calculations of the overall impact of different materials help pharma brand owners make better-informed decisions. Metsä Board can provide pharma brand owners with this information through its Sustainability Service, which is part of the Metsä Board 360 Services offering.
The first step is to measure the current packaging and calculate its environmental impacts in terms of its carbon footprint or overall environmental impacts.
“This information is based on product category rules for processed paper and paperboard, which are used when conducting environmental product declarations (EPDs). If the customer wishes, Metsä Board can also provide a full Life Cycle Assessment with a wider range of environmental impact categories and resource use indicators for all its paperboards,” explains Lari Oksala, Sustainability Manager at Metsä Board.
Metsä Board has conducted assessments to demonstrate the carbon footprint reduction potential of its paperboard materials. For example, switching from solid bleached board (SBB) to Metsä Board’s folding boxboard can reduce the carbon footprint of packaging by over 50 per cent, while a switch from white lined chipboard or recycled paperboard to Metsä Board folding boxboard can provide a reduction of 60 per cent or even more.* The assessments have been verified by IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute.
Fresh or recycled?
The carbon footprint of pharma packaging made from fresh fibres can be lower than that of packaging made from recycled fibres. The paperboard weight and the amount of material needed to produce a piece of packaging, as well as the type of energy used, play an important role in the carbon footprint.
“With recycled paperboard, you often need more material to meet the same strength and stiffness requirements that you’d get with fresh fibre,” says Anne Uusitalo, Product Safety and Sustainability Director at Metsä Board.
“Fresh fibre paperboards provide high strength and bulk, so lighter basis weights can be used for the same packaging quality. This translates into less packaging material needed, less weight to transport and less waste to dispose of at the end of the chain.”
Moreover, the type of energy used in paperboard production plays a key role: “Our paperboards are produced with a high share of fossil free energy, which lowers the carbon footprint,” Uusitalo adds.
* Assessments follow the procedural and methodological requirements of ISO 14025 and are consistent with ISO 14040 and 14044 standards. The selected system boundary for the study was cradle-to-gate + end-of-life, and selected climate change impact methodology was EF3.1 Climate Change - total. Climate change impacts for competing materials utilise data from Sphera LCA for Packaging, which seeks to represent general products in the European market. The technical background report and the verification statement are available on Metsä Board’s website.
