Design and evaluation of sustainable packaging in supply chain

• Main Author: Shi, Jing
• Other Authors: Li, Dong ; Drake, Paul
• Published: University of Liverpool 2018
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.762754

Sustainability is a multi-objective goal to achieve environmentally sound, socially just and economically viable. But existing packaging design research and practice usually does not cover all these aspects of sustainability. As the increasing demand of packaging is leading to more packaging induced problems, packaging-related impact on sustainability is gaining increasing concern and recognitions from consumers, organisations, and governments. Unlike conventional products, packaging's impact on sustainability does not reflect solely on itself at the product level; instead, comes from the logistics operations it involved, and from its interactions with packed goods and logistics operations at different phases of the supply chain. By exploring packaging and logistics interactions, this research proposed a framework for sustainable packaging system assessment, which integrates the packed goods, packaging and logistics into packaging logistics concept from holistic view. Then, a generic evaluation method was developed based on FMEA and QFD, to quantify the consideration of interactions between packaging, goods and logistic operations. It adds risk consideration into packaging's impact on sustainability. The proposed tool was then integrated into a simulation model for sustainable container supply chain evaluation, considering the container's similarity to packaging. Different case studies were conducted to validate and triangulate the proposed evaluation tools, illustrating how the proposed method help with decision-making support for sustainable packaging and container supply chain design. By help identifying sustainable packaging solution, and balancing cost/benefit for different supply chain parties, utilisation of sustainable packaging is also promoted by this study.