SPC Grows Into Strong Advocate Voice

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) is a project of GreenBlue, a not-for-profit, sustainability organization that stimulates the creative redesign of industry. The goals of both are to create practical solutions, resources, and opportunities for implementing sustainability.

The quickly growing membership of the SPC already includes major CPGs like Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Microsoft, and Nike. The first project of SPC was to develop a thorough definition of sustainable packaging, available on their website at www.sustainablepackaging.org.

SPC collected case studies for this year's Pack Expo International in Chicago, and presented them with placards that showed how the packaging met sustainable goals in eight categories. These eight categories directly reflect the eight parts of the SPC definition of sustainable packaging. Here are two examples of retail application case studies.

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Microsoft's Streets & Trips

Packaging 2.0 is a packaging solutions company that owns the trademark for SmartCycle™, which recycles polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into new packaging. They worked with Transparent Container and Microsoft to develop an environmentally responsible and reusable package for a GPS consumer electronics product. The reclosable clamshell inside lets the consumer retain the clamshell to protect and store the valuable GPS device.

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LexMark Print Cartridges

MeadWestvaco has developed Natralock™, a tear-resistant packaging structure that combines paperboard and a PET "bubble" or "blister pack" to hold the product. This package innovation is a replacement for PVC or other plastic clamshells and blister packs. This package represents a design innovation that uses new materials to perform the function of traditional plastics.