Kraft Heinz is the world’s fifth-largest food and beverage
company, so it buys an awful lot of print. Recently Kraft Heinz has
been paying more attention to its environmental impact,
specifically its recycling objectives.

Under its new CEO Bernardo Hees, CEO, the company has renewed
its sustainability commitments. The company published its Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) programme 2015, outlining commitments
to cut by 15% greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, waste to
landfill and energy consumption emissions by 2020, from a 2015
baseline. With an eye on the circular economy Kraft Heinz has now
gone a step further, and aims for all of its packaging to be 100%
recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. That means using more
recyclable plastics and an increase in paper and board usage.
Crucially Kraft Heinz’s CSR commitment extends to the company’s
supply chain, which of course includes packaging designers and
print service providers.

Hees said “We found that most of our emissions are coming from
areas outside our direct operations. To truly succeed as champions
of sustainability, we will look at our full value chain and
determine where we can make the greatest impact for our planet.”
This means that any company providing print media services for
Kraft Heinz branded products should have policies in place
supporting sustainability, such as waste management and production
workflow efficiency. Designers, agencies and print service
providers working on product packaging can work with Kraft Heinz to
support this effort with environmentally friendly packaging designs
and production models. ISO’s technical committee for graphics
technology already has a couple of documents to help with this,
hopefully encouraging more people to consider recyclability as part
of their packaging design criteria.

Packaging designs can optimise sustainability in various ways,
such as by minimising excess components and complex production, and
maximising the use of recyclable materials. Production can be
organised to be as close as possible to its point of use, in order
to minimise emissions associated with transport. Waste handling can
also be supported pre- and post-consumer by print service providers
working in partnership with the brands.

Kraft Heinz has a global presence, so its work towards a
circular economy is relevant worldwide. The company is working with
Environmental Packaging International, a consulting group, to
improve packaging solutions and develop efforts for technical
improvements and improved recycling rates. Kraft Heinz is
partnering with appropriate industry associations and organisations
to look at the technical, end-of-life and infrastruction options
available to it. It is looking into what’s needed and investing in
what’s required. Where possible it’s going beyond increasing the
amount of recycled materials in packaging and reducing overall
packaging volumes. The company has already reduced the overall
weight of its global packaging by 50,000 metric tonnes and is
working on making the PET bottle used in its tomato ketchup fully
circular by 2022. The new PET will use recyclable material that can
be processed into new food grade plastic.

For print service providers this all means improved workflow and
colour management efficiency. It means doing carbon footprint
calculations for packaging based on ISO 16759 for calculating the
carbon footprint of print. It means managing waste control and
logistics optimisation. All of this plus other ideas can be
developed to support the Kraft Heinz expectations and those of its
competitors in the packaging supply chain. More details will be
available in the company’s sustainability report due out later this
year.

– Laurel Brunner

This article was produced by the Verdigris Project, an
industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive
environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing
companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how
environmentally friendly business management can help improve their
bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following
companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Fespa, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash
PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.