Sustainable packaging begins long before it reaches our hands: it starts in the design phase. This is the idea that opens the ninth episode of “Packaging and Innovation Always on Point,” the web series that Sociedade Ponto Verde marks its 30-year anniversary with. In “Rethinking Packaging,” the series shows how scientific knowledge, industrial insight, and companies came together around Pack4Sustain, a tool that helps create more circular and future-ready packaging.
From Industry to University
Pack4Sustain was developed by Sociedade Ponto Verde with CENTIMFE, the Technological Center for the Mold, Tooling, Special Tools and Plastics Industry, and with NOVA FCT. “CENTIMFE is a technology interface and innovation center,” explains the managing director, Rui Tocha. “We work a lot on the needs and difficulties that companies are feeling in the market, whether from an organizational point of view or a technological one,” with the aim of helping them reposition themselves in the global market.
It was with this knowledge that Sociedade Ponto Verde sought the center, to develop “a design thinking solution” capable of giving rise to new packaging that leverages ecodesign, new materials, and sustainable development processes, “to reduce the impacts on the planet.” For Rui Tocha, the partnership between Sociedade Ponto Verde, the university, and CENTIMFE “is clearly a success” and resulted in a project “very interesting and quite innovative.”
Scientific Criteria to Evaluate Each Package
Pack4Sustain is an online tool designed for the packaging clients of Sociedade Ponto Verde, which allows them to design packaging that is more sustainable and more circular through ecodesign, explains Graça Martinho, professor and researcher at NOVA FCT. The tool assesses the sustainability and circularity of packaging and helps companies improve their design, making them more recyclable and reducing their environmental impact.
Behind the tool lies a research effort. “Beyond extensive research into other tools that already existed, we evaluated strengths, weaknesses, gaps that would allow us to innovate,” says the researcher. The team developed the assessment methodology, the scientific criteria, and the algorithms, always with Sociedade Ponto Verde nearby: “They were always by our side. We held many meetings, because they were always evaluating, testing.” That link to the market, notes Graça Martinho, allowed “to develop a final product that works.”
From Testing to Shelf
After the research, the moment arrived to understand how the tool is being used by companies. MC, the food retail arm of the Sonae group, with brands such as Continente, Continente Bom Dia, and Continente Modelo, has been involved since the launch. “We contributed to what was, at the time of the platform’s availability, its testing and even its improvement,” says Tânia Lucas, Commercial Director of Private Label at MC.
Pack4Sustain is available to all clients of Sociedade Ponto Verde and allows evaluating the recyclability of packaging. “We have a very serious commitment to 100% recyclability,” says the person in charge. “Thinking about recyclability at the packaging design and conception stage is very relevant,” she adds, and a tool that helps teams in that moment is, in her words, “very powerful.” The relationship between the two entities did not start here: “We have done many, many projects with Sociedade Ponto Verde,” in a partnership that Tânia Lucas describes as “absolutely virtuous.”
When Ecodesign Reaches Suppliers
When different companies adopt ecodesign tools, the impact multiplies. Grupo Os Mosqueteiros has been present in Portugal for 35 years, with the stores Intermarché, Bricomarché, and Roady, and packaging has become one of the priorities of its own-brand, explains Aline Gonçalves, administrator of the Quality and Corporate Social Responsibility Directorate. The focus is on optimizing packaging to reduce its environmental impact.
“With our supplier, we increasingly define the ecodesign criteria for packaging,” she says. “We are monitoring processes, analyzing and adjusting what needs to be adjusted.” The partnership with Sociedade Ponto Verde, she adds, “results from a combination of proximity, collaboration, and technical knowledge,” with recourse, whenever necessary, to the technical support of the managing entity.
When science, companies, and innovation work together, the episode concludes, a new way of thinking about packaging is born: more sustainable, more circular, and prepared for the future. It is also through this path that packaging recycling passes, which begins in the design, long before the packaging reaches the eco-point.
