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3 strategies for 2 crises: Tackling carbon emissions and packaging waste together

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29 Apr, 2025

This post was originally published on Green Biz

Source: Green Biz

If you’re tuned into corporate sustainability, you probably hear companies talk about net-zero targets all the time. You probably also hear companies talk about efforts to prevent plastic pollution and improve packaging recyclability. But how often do you hear companies try to link these efforts together?

It’s a huge missed opportunity. Packaging waste and carbon emissions are two sides of the same coin — the materials used for transport and disposal carry a carbon cost across its life cycle. Understanding this connection is key for making meaningful progress on both fronts. 

While the sustainable packaging community has been busy setting sustainability goals to hit recycling or sustainable sourcing targets, it can feel like the industry has forgotten where these goals are supposed to take us: to a world where we have carbon emissions and waste under control. 

Understanding packaging’s contribution to carbon emissions 

Packaging, as most of us know, heavily contributes to the climate crisis. 

In 2019, plastics contributed more emissions than the aviation and shipping industries combined. According to the OECD, the supply chain of plastics generated 3.4 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and 90 percent of this came from production and conversion from fossil fuels. 

If plastics were a country, they would have the fifth-largest share of global emissions as of 2022, just below China, the U.S., India and Russia. Although many plastics go into products that aren’t packaging, if we look at the rest of the packaging value chain — glass, aluminum, fiber, bioplastics — the total carbon footprint of packaging would be even larger. 

Right now, the consequences of packaging’s waste and carbon emissions are treated in siloes. Waste is framed as a pollution problem, carbon as a climate one — and companies are left to piece together fragmented strategies instead of unified solutions. But we can tackle climate change by using sustainable packaging efforts through the following strategies. 

Fold your packaging goals and wins into your climate strategy

Too often, sustainable packaging does the hard work of decarbonizing without getting credit for it. It’s time to change that. Reducing packaging material avoids emissions, and this should be counted towards emissions targets. Redesigning packaging so that it doesn’t go to landfills is a win for your carbon goals, too. 

Embedding packaging goals and calculations into your climate strategy is the first step. If you don’t know where to start, use Life Cycle Assessment tools and packaging calculators to calculate the avoided emissions of a packaging change.

Make it clear — to colleagues, consumers and investors — how your packaging efforts are part of your climate strategy. Unilever’s Scope 3 GHG reduction plan, for example, shows how packaging is helping them to meet their 2030 target of reducing absolute Scope 3 emissions by 30-40 percent.

Think differently about tradeoffs

Right now, when we design packaging to be recyclable and the change creates more emissions, this is called a tradeoff. Companies feel they have to pick one direction, and based on pressure from consumers, they often choose recyclability. If a package has no good end-of-life option but a lower carbon footprint (like a not yet recyclable plastic bag, for example), this is considered another unfortunate, but necessary tradeoff. 

Instead, what if we thought about tradeoffs like we think about flying with a layover? Layovers aren’t your final destination — they’re just a sometimes necessary stop along the way. Making short-term sustainability tradeoffs is a layover on our path toward a future with reduced waste and carbon emissions in packaging. 

Companies don’t have to wait to address both crises, either. Already, companies such as Prana are adopting practices — such as using seaweed-based compostable packaging — to address both waste and carbon emissions. 

Go for the big swings

What’s the single biggest swing companies can take to address both climate and packaging waste? Reduction. While switching to a “better” single-use material — renewable feedstock or recycled content — may seem like a step forward, it’s ultimately only an incremental change. 

The future of sustainable packaging hinges on whether companies truly understand and embrace the importance of reduction and system redesign. By reducing the amount of packaging used in the first place and redesigning packaging to be reusable or refillable, companies can significantly lower resource use, carbon emissions and environmental impact. And you can take comfort knowing that your company won’t be the first to do this. Companies such as beverage giant Diageo are already finding ways to scale circular, reusable packaging.  

Right now, we’re wasting our time in transit. If we meet these opportunities — by folding our packaging and climate goals together, rethinking tradeoffs and taking big swings — we’ll reach that future with reduced waste and carbon emissions.

For more on reducing and eliminating waste in the global economy, stay tuned for Circularity 2025 starting Tuesday. 

The post 3 strategies for 2 crises: Tackling carbon emissions and packaging waste together appeared first on Trellis.

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Food waste action reduces methane emissions

Food waste action reduces methane emissions

An NZ food waste reduction initiative is providing an extra 12,000 meals per day and helping prevent climate-warming methane emissions from food going to landfill.

New results, released by the Kai Commitment, show that organisations involved in the food waste reduction program — which includes major New Zealand food businesses such as Woolworths NZ, Goodman Fielder, Fonterra, Silver Fern Farms, Foodstuffs and Nestlé NZ — increased food rescue volumes by 73% over the past year, totalling almost 13 million meals.

The data also revealed a 3% reduction in food going to landfill, helping prevent emissions from methane, a greenhouse gas said to be around 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. This data enables estimation of methane emissions reduction across New Zealand, in line with the New Zealand Government’s methane reduction priorities under the second Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP2), which aims to reduce biogenic methane by 10% by 2030.

Kaitlin Dawson, Executive Director of the Kai Commitment, said the results show that food waste reduction is a powerful lever for food insecurity and climate action, and targeted measurement and action in this space has an important role to play in helping the country meet its local and international climate targets.

“Food sector organisations have a crucial role in reducing food waste, and when supported with the right tools and frameworks, they can be a genuine force for good. We’re seeing businesses step up, take responsibility, and … deliver real impact for our community and climate,” Dawson said.

The results follow the NZ Government’s 2025 Budget announcement, which committed $15 million to support food redistribution. At the same time, food insecurity continues to rise across New Zealand. According to the Ministry of Health, one in four children (27.0%) now live in households where food runs out often or sometimes. For Pacific children, that figure is over half (54.8%); for Māori children, it is one in three (34.3%).

“With mounting financial pressures and increasing food insecurity, ensuring that good food is not wasted and gets to those who need it has never been more critical. At the same time, businesses have a unique opportunity to directly contribute to New Zealand’s national climate targets by embedding food waste reduction across their operations,” Dawson said.

Since its launch two years ago, the Kai Commitment program has helped businesses implement stronger food waste measurement, improve stock handling practices, and integrate food waste principles into operations and culture.

Key achievements include:

All participating businesses now integrate food loss and waste (FLW) into staff training.
43% of businesses have established FLW key performance indicators, up from just 14% in the first year.
71% of businesses now manage waste according to the food waste hierarchy, prioritising reuse and rescue over landfill.
Edible food waste reduced by 54%.
Expired stock to waste destinations reduced by 24%.
An 83% increase in surplus food revenue was recorded, returning an additional $3.6 million to food businesses.
 

“These results show what’s possible when we work together to deliver impact,” Dawson said. “As we grow the Kai Commitment, we’re focused on scaling that impact supporting more organisations to reduce food waste, cut emissions, and contribute to a stronger, more resilient food system for Aotearoa.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Dragos Condrea

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