The total environmental impact and carbon footprint of your packaging are displayed and summarised in your Packaging Impact Reports (formerly called Eco Forecast). (image below)
This information enables you to help your customers:
Report on their scope 3 product impact: CO2-eq or total impact per product.
Reduce the environmental impact of products they purchase from you.
Let’s go through every part.
Total Results
1. Total Carbon footprint.
What: Total carbon footprint of your packaging expressed in CO2-eq and eco costs.
Why: Carbon footprints are popular for a reason. They often make up the biggest impact chunk of your packaging. But this isn’t always the case - which is why we cover 4 impact categories in Pickler.
2. Total Eco costs
What: A single metric for your packaging’s footprint expressed in € per kg of material. The score summarizes all 12 impact categories in LCA.
Why: Having a single metric allows us to finally compare the complete impacts of different products. Something that’s otherwise impossible, as all impacts have different measurement units.
You can see eco costs as the environmental costs that aren’t reflected in the market price of your packaging. Put it on top of your sales price and you have a ‘True’ price for your packaging.
3. Environmental Impact Score (eco-score)
What: A labeling system ranging from A - G to show how environmentally friendly your packaging is. It uses stoplight colors similar to energy and nutrition labels.
Why: The Impact score is an intuitive way to give customers or other stakeholders a clear impression of your packaging’s environmental impact. The labeling is based on our eco cost model. Which is explained in point 2.1.
Scores are usually higher for bigger, heavier packaging types. This makes sense. The bigger and heavier - the more materials used - the higher its environmental impact.
Impact per Life cycle stage
This section of the report, shows your product's eco costs and carbon footprint per life cycle stage. It's split into:
Life cycle impact expressed in carbon footprint: CO2-eq
Life cycle impact expressed in eco cost: € (or your local currency)
The lifecycle stages included in Pickler are cradle to grave (full product life cycle):
Raw materials
Production
Transport
End-of-life
What does the lifecycle impact tell me/my customer?
The lifecycle impact shows exactly:
What life cycle stages cause the biggest impact of your product
The biggest impact category for your product (e.g. this could be impact in ecosystems, or impact on climate change - results might surprise you!)
We call these so-called 'impact hotspots'. They tell you exactly which areas you should focus on should you want to reduce the impact of your product. Tackling these hotspots enables you to effectively reduce impact where it actually matters (gotta love data!).
Plus; knowing the biggest impact category for your product, helps you steer your improvements in a direction where it could - for example - actually improve eco systems. (e.g. invest in reforestation)
4. Impact on Resource Scarcity
What: Impact your packaging product has on resource scarcity, expressed in eco costs.
Why: Every new product requires raw materials that need to be retrieved. This heavily impacts our available resources and creates resource depletion/scarcity. A big issue to solve in our goals to create a more circular economy, hence a focus area from the EU.
For example - if you use recycled materials in your production, this often decreases your impact on resource scarcity.
5. Impact on Ecosystems
What: Impact your packaging has on disrupting ecosystems, expressed in eco costs.
Why: Our ecosystems are crucial to creating balance in nature. However, our economic activities are decreasing biodiversity and polluting soil, water, and landscapes. All together damaging entire ecosystems. Making it one of the crucial impact categories to report on.
6. Impact on Human Health
What: Impact your packaging has on human health, expressed in eco costs.
Why: Next to polluting our environment - our economic efforts result in many types of emissions that can cause cancer or other illnesses for humans. A crucial aspect to cover.
Product Journey
This section shows as a visual representation of your product's transport journey during its complete life cycle. This helps as a tool for sales: enabling you to better explain where the impact of a product comes from (transport plays a role of course!).
About your company
In this section, you can put more information about your company and its sustainability mission. This helps your customer understand why having these Packaging Impact Reports is so important for you. Additionally, it helps with outreach to new clients.
You can adjust these company settings in your account setting in Pickler under 'company profile' (see image below).
About this report (credibility)
This section serves to explain to your clients, why working with Pickler ensures credible results in line with anti-greenwashing regulations.
Should your customers have any questions about the matter, they will find links to articles explaining each topic here.
