Opening Lines: Green, Not Naïve
Sustainability reports help to substantiate green claims.
By Jennifer Kwok, EditorTalk about green is at an all-time high in the packaging industry, no doubt about it. We editors, too, can find it hard to stay away from stories about sustainability for many reasons—not only because we care about the environment, but also because sustainability is what the people we interview want to discuss. In this issue of CPC Packaging alone, many of our stories, including those on cartons and bath and body products, took on a green angle. We report on what’s happening in the industry, and for now, what’s happening is talk about green.
Like everyone, we hope that there is substance behind the claims that companies have been making. As Karen Young, CEO of The Young Group, said at a Luxe Pack New York conference I attended (and wrote about) a while back: “Our antennas are now up on greenwashing.”
For many suppliers and marketers, sustainable packaging is new territory. Right now, we see a lot of companies telling us what they would like to do or can do. But what will really be interesting to see, in a few years, is what these companies have been able to do. In other words, we’ll need results, not just promises.
Sustainability reports are one way in which suppliers, especially paper and carton providers, are conveying the actual results of their eco-friendly practices to the public. In her article in this issue, called Wrapped in Green, Maureen Kingsley describes how carton converter Curtis Packaging published its first Luxuriously Responsible Sustainability Report, which details the year-end results of the company’s green-packaging initiatives. Hard data, including statistics about the company’s sources of CO₂ emissions, are included in this report.
Some cosmetic companies are also publishing sustainability reports. On its corporate Web site, L’Oréal has posted an extremely detailed 30-plus-page document reporting on everything that the company has done in the past year to improve its eco-friendliness—including a specific breakdown on how it has reduced the weight of its Garnier Fructis packaging year over year.
You might consider these types of sustainability reports to be just another form of greenwashing. But to me, they are not.
If you, like many of us, are trying to separate greenwashing from fact, I urge you to register for our free Going Green Webcast, taking place October 15, to learn about which packaging materials the experts deem as truly eco-friendly. Extremely well received at the Cosmoprof North America trade show in July, this Webcast features a high-profile roster of speakers who know what they are talking about. See ours news article to learn more about the speakers and to get a sneak peak at what they will discuss.