SPC Advance 2015

With a growing amount of energy forming around sustainability considerations for pharmaceutical packaging, this SPC Industry Leadership Committee seeks to uncover opportunities, provide education, and proliferate best practices to all stakeholders throughout the pharmaceutical packaging value chain. Areas of interest include cold chain packaging, upstream design considerations, and recovery opportunities. Bring your ideas and join the discussion of this new committee.

This special offering of the SPC’s educational seminar is perfect for anyone needing an introduction to the main concepts of sustainable packaging as well as anyone in need of a refresher. Normally offered as a full day course, the Essentials of Sustainable Packaging has been taught in five countries to hundreds of professionals from all backgrounds. This half-day session will cover the fundamentals of life cycle thinking, sustainable design, sourcing considerations, packaging recovery, and more.

This working session is designed to facilitate brainstorming and ideation with a goal of finalizing this new committee’s objectives and desired outcomes. Topics to be addressed include:

• Exploring design parameters and the possibility of supporting end-of-life solutions through design innovations.
• Identifying challenges, opportunities, and resources to enable collection and sorting.
• Evaluating innovative technologies and emerging resources that offer novel recovery solutions.

Please come prepared to share your ideas and provide input to help ensure this committee’s work provides meaningful value to your organization.

The circular economy began as an abstract philosophy and is now solidifying into a tangible collection of business strategies and opportunities. More than just sourcing considerations and material recovery, work on the circular economy encompass technology drivers, novel business models, and reinforcing legislation. This workshop, led by GreenBlue and SPC Executive Director Nina Goodrich, explores the different facets of the circular economy and teaches attendees how their activities fit with this new business paradigm.

This workshop will provide an overview of three  packaging design tools that are valuable individually and powerful when integrated: COMPASS, EcoImpact, and redipoint.

Participants will first learn the benefits of conducting streamlined life cycle analyses during the packaging and product design phase throughout an in-depth overview of the features and functionality of two tools:

• COMPASS, a streamlined life cycle assessment tool created by the SPC to provide direction when evaluating package design decisions. COMPASS uses industry average data to produce estimates of environmental impacts for eight sustainability indicators as well as a set of useful sustainability attributes.
• EcoImpact, offered by Trayak, which allows a range of life cycle impact assessment methods to be used to evaluate the environmental characteristics of products and packages

The session will then showcase redipoint, a software solution from Environmental Packaging International (EPI) that enables users to fulfill their Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) reporting obligations for more than 50 jurisdictions globally. redipoint also allows users to produce corporate social responsibility reports, retailer sustainability surveys and SASB reporting. Global EPR fees on individual SKUs can also be modeled and therefore be used for cost of good analysis in redipoint using the data in COMPASS and EcoImpact

Attendees will leave this workshop armed with insight into how these leading tools can facilitate design decisions and alleviate the challenges of understanding the social, environmental, and economic impacts of products and packaging.

Join this tour to see the local material recovery facility (MRF) where recyclables are sorted and processed after collection. Serving Charlotte and the surrounding area, this MRF features several pieces of advanced sorting technology and attendees will see the facility in action as tons of recyclables are processed and sent on their way to become recycled content in the next generation of products and packaging. Knowledgable staff will be on hand to answer questions and host a special learning session in the facility’s education center.

Whether you attend the working session on responsible forest management or simply want a firsthand look at one of the most important sources of fiber in North America, join this tour and take part in a unique boots-on-the-ground experience at a nearby family-owned forest. Enjoy the outdoors while learning about the management practices aimed at sustaining a healthy and productive source of fiber, and bring your questions for the on-site discussion and Q&A. Special thanks to Evergreen Packaging for a generous donation to help underwrite the cost of this tour.