Green labeling is one of the hottest topics in label and package printing. All aspects of the supply chain, from equipment manufacturers to substrate suppliers, have been tasked with designing products that boast environmentally friendly properties.
There is a growing demand for sustainable paper substrates, which often means materials made from responsibly sourced and recycled fibers.
“Brand focus on sustainability is driven by investors and the potential for regulation on sustainability disclosure,” states Matt Wilkinson, sustainability and circularity technical manager, Avery Dennison. “As a result, converters are also seeing this. Converters are now being asked more frequently to support these requests for sustainability disclosure, data, and transparency on their sustainability practices.”
What is green labeling, anyway?
Green labeling is a positive statement that identifies a certain product or service as less harmful to the environment than other similar products or services. However, for label converters there is a lot of nuance.
The label is more than just the facestock, as inks and coatings, adhesives, and liners are all pivotal in creating what would be termed a green label. The substrates must be phenol free and phenol free. And decarbonization is trending, as major brands have net zero and targeted GHG emission goals. In order to support those targets, lightweight papers are becoming increasingly prevalent for a variety of applications.
How green labeling has impacted label converter business strategy
Suppliers have gone to great lengths to promote the concept of green labeling. For example, Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives has made a strong commitment to ESG principles. The company is platinum-rated by EcoVadis (more on that later), placing it in the top 1% of companies globally for our ESG performance.
Plus, Fedrigoni’s 2030 ESG goals are ambitious, including a 10% reduction in freshwater withdrawal, ensuring 100% of waste is sent for recovery, achieving 35% women in managerial positions globally, and reducing absolute carbon dioxide emissions by 30%.
“These initiatives are designed to integrate sustainability deeply into our business practices, making our products an ideal choice for brands looking to enhance their sustainability strategy," states Paige Dennis, area manager, North America, East region, Fedrigoni. “For converters and brands, it’s important to note that we offer paper substrates that are recyclable, have APR wash-off certifications, or are commercially compostable, supporting a circular economy and helping brands meet their environmental goals.”
Meanwhile, Avery Dennison has committed to ambitious 2030 sustainability goals. Advancing these goals is core to the company’s current and future innovation. These innovations include both reducing the carbon footprint of our materials and also enabling recyclability of the substrates the labels are applied to.
Some of the newest products have been unveiled to meet the green labeling trends. The UPM Raflatac RAFNXT+ range has been developed as a future-proof, lower carbon alternative to traditional labeling materials. By making a smarter choice and use of renewable materials, RAFNXT+ products have lower carbon footprints than the company’s standard labeling materials. In addition to carbon benefits, the RAFNXT+ range offers efficiencies in terms of reel change reduction and increased quantity of labels per roll.
“All papers sourced by UPM Raflatac, whether used as a face paper or a release liner, are certified under a credible third-party verified forest certification scheme,” explains Brinder Gill, Director of Paper Laminates Business, Americas, UPM Raflatac. “Having all papers certified is one of our 2030 responsible sourcing and climate targets, which was achieved ahead of time. We support our customers in achieving their responsible sourcing targets by this achievement. Sustainability affects all areas of the organization, from continuous innovation in sustainable products. We also serve our customers with a leading label life cycle assessment service, Label Life, providing essential information on the environmental impacts of different label products and cradle-to-grave assessments including different end-of-life scenarios.”
“We at Avery Dennison are the first to be recognized for offering a portfolio of metallized label solutions capable of working with the recycling systems to enable rigid plastic recycling,” adds Wilkinson. “Avery Dennison is also the first to offer AD CleanFlake Technology on all film labels, enabling and advancing rigid plastic recycling. Regardless of application, AD CleanFlake Technology offers excellent performance on all types of packaging — making sustainability the easy choice.”
Of course, a green label must also promote recyclability. “If you want to optimize the recyclability of packaging, you need to match the label to the package substrate with the recycling process in mind,” says Gill. “The primary packaging material determines the recycling process. The better the recycling compatibility between the label and the packaging, the better the recyclability and recycling yield of the entire packaging tends to be. Recommendations and regulations for recyclable solutions vary based on location thus we encourage customers to contact our experts for further guidance.”
“The recycling process, however, is not always straightforward,” notes Jay Beach, marketing director, PRI Plus. “Consumers are demanding better sustainability practices, but they often face conflicting information. We can’t just offer solutions; we have to be able to explain the ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ as well. A lot of the reasoning for this is the vast amount of greenwashing that takes place. We’ve all heard the benefits of recycling and have seen the different colored bins to separate everything into. But then we hear conflicting stats they say less than 10% of plastics are recycled, and 60% are recycled, and 97% are recyclable. But which is it?
“The truth is, all those claims are accurate, and none of the claims are accurate,” Beach continues. “Statistics don’t lie but people do. There’s a lot that goes into determining whether or not something can be recycled, and one of the factors is the label. The adhesive, face, coatings, ink, embellishments, and overlaminate can each by itself affect the recyclability of a product.
Green label certifications
Associations and certifications have been crucial parts of the sustainability process. The Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) and EcoVadis have been critical for the label and package printing industry.
Looking into APR
APR is an international trade association representing the plastics recycling industry. APR member companies are committed to the success of plastics recycling, and membership spans the entire industry and contributes to a more sustainable future. Based on the amount of confusion regarding material recycling, APR touts a key goal of education. Key audiences for education include state and local recycling officials, MRF operators, legislators, and others across the plastics recycling value chain.
APR represents more than 90% of the post-consumer plastics recycling (PCR) capacity in North America. Its diverse group of members include purchasers, recyclers and reclaimers of collected plastic bottles. APR has emerged as a leading partner of many in the industry to help promote sustainable initiatives, which will ultimately lead to a lower carbon footprint. The association conducts independent research and releases reports on their findings.
APR’s mission involves dramatically increasing the volume of plastic that can be recycled back into marketable. This will allow the plastics recycling industry to grow and be sustainable. In order to promote compliance, APR has endorsed third-party companies to conduct certifications. Reclaimers subsequently hire these companies to conduct certifications, and APR then promotes a listing of certified PCR available from reclaimers who are APR members. To get started with APR PCR certification, an interested party must first contact one of APR’s endorsed certifiers to schedule an audit.
Members include, but are not limited to, label and ink manufacturers, label converters, chemical recyclers, brand owners, film and flexible packaging manufacturers, and more.
“The need for continued and growing demand for post-consumer recycled content is essential to the success of plastics recycling, and a key focus for APR,” says Steve Alexander, president and CEO, APR. “Although we most certainly need more feedstock to achieve real growth, we must recognize the wide range of applications for recycled plastics including durable, non-food items, which are what this program was built on from the beginning.”
Looking into EcoVadis
The EcoVadis platform helps label companies manage ESG risk and compliance, meet corporate sustainability goals, and drive impact at scale by guiding the sustainability performance improvement of their company and value chain.
Over 1,200 organizations – from the largest global brands to regional leaders and mid-size companies – rely on EcoVadis to assess and manage sustainability practices within their supply chain.
The EcoVadis sustainability assessment methodology is the basis for the organization’s Ratings and Scorecards and is an evaluation of how well a company has integrated the principles of Sustainability/CSR into their business and management system. Its goal is to enable, cultivate, deliver, and foster resources for a more sustainable world.
EcoVadis’ commitments include: Reducing Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 50% by 2030; increasing the annual sourcing of renewable electricity to 100% by 2030; and reducing Scope 3 emissions per unit value added by 55% by 2030.
By partnering with EcoVadis certified suppliers, brands can strengthen the social, environmental and economic performance of their supply chain, reducing their collective footprints and strengthening their companies as well. EcoVadis’ standards also help companies map their supplier performance to their own responsibility standards, and thereby present a compelling sustainability story to consumers.
The organization envisions “a global marketplace where sustainability intelligence influences every business decision – improving economies, people’s lives and the planet we all depend on.” Plus, the rating structure is based on four levels: Platinum (top 1%), Gold (top 5%), Silver (top 25%), and Bronze (top 50%).
In order for converters and suppliers to deliver green labels, sustainability must be integrated as a holistic approach within overall operations. This is the case for PRI Plus.
“PRI Plus has never looked at sustainability for the sake of sustainability, but we take it very seriously to look at sustainability in ways to provide superior products, minimize waste to control costs, use non-volatile materials for safer and healthier working conditions, and to look for ways to cut energy consumption,” says Beach. “This includes sourcing from suppliers that are dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world’s forests, using only solvent-free materials in our adhesives and facestock, and having controls in place that result in far less scrap at the start of a run.”