ClearStream Solutions

The environmental and financial impact of packaging is under increasing scrutiny by governments and companies alike.  However, many suppliers are unsure of how to measure and report on the environmental performance of their packaging.  Sustainable Supply Chain solutions company Clearstream Solutions have partnered with Eco3 to launch a new online packaging tool to help companies measure and report on the environmental performance of their packaging.

These impacts include carbon, water, recyclability, volumetrics, toxicity and a wide range of other critical environmental life cycle impacts. The tool provides a set of metrics and reports for internal and external use. Data sets are sourced from the most up to date global best practice resources, are regularly updated and verified by a number of international organisations and state bodies.

Brian O’Kennedy, Clearstream Solutions Managing Director outlined the uniqueness of the tool is in its ability to integrate with existing content management, specification design tools and company ERP systems.  “There are lots of simple packaging tools out on the market. However they lack flexibility and most operate on a stand-alone basis. As companies are designing their product packaging, the PEAT tool can simultaneously calculate the environmental impacts across the supply chain before the product hits the shelves. The reporting functionality can be adapted to whatever metrics and measures the customers feel are most critical to their business, for example, compliance to EU Essential Packaging Regulations, The Consumer Goods Forum guidelines or the US Walmart packaging assessment scores”,  according to O’Kennedy.

Key environmental aspects covered by the tool include:

• Primary, secondary and transit packaging,
• Raw materials (inc. packing of raw materials)
• Manufacturing (energy, waste and emissions)
• Transit / Shipper Packaging
• Storage
• Transportation
• Waste
• Reuse
• Recycling process

 Assessment outputs from PEAT include, but are not limited to:

• Product Weight Ratios
• Product Volume Ratio
• Volumetrics
• Recycled Content
• Recyclability
• Carbon Footprint of Materials Embedded
• Carbon Footprint from Processing
• Carbon Footprint of Transport
• Water footprinting
• Toxicity measures
• Other ‘Life Cycle’   measures such as  Eutrophication, Acidification and Ozone Depletion.
• Other social and economic measures

 For further details contact Brian O’Kennedy at Clearstream Solutions

E: brian@clearstreamsolutions.ie  Ph: +353 1 2973390 W: www.clearstreamsolutions.ie