10 March 2021 
Ashley Shelbrooke, HEPA and Project Specialist
During the current Pandemic and lockdown periods, IMRG reported that on-line sales had increased by 36% in 2020, which is the highest growth rate in 13 years. In many cases, this increase in on-line deliveries has highlighted three sustainability issues, firstly, the excessive waste of packaging which goes way beyond product protection, secondly, the use of non-recycled or recyclable packaging materials and finally, the multiple separate deliveries from certain on-line retailers for a single order. Translate this to the volume of product and packaging delivered to a University campus annually, and there are clearly sustainability concerns that Procurement staff can target and reduce in collaboration with internal customers and suppliers.
In 2020, the HEPA Responsible Procurement Group Sustainable Packaging and Deliveries Subgroup developed a plan to develop resources and activities to support Consortia and University Procurement staff in reducing packaging, increasing recycled content and reducing deliveries which would also help with reducing carbon emissions.
One of the first things that was considered by the group was how to identify which categories needed the most attention due to the high volumes of packaging. The University of the West of England offered their assistance and facilitated by Helen Baker in Procurement, the Sustainability team of Paul Roberts and Jennifer Fawcett-Thorne took the existing Sustainability Risk Analysis by PROC-HE 2 and updated it to include columns for packaging, specifically plastics, cardboard and polystyrene as well as identifying where the supplier may be liable for reporting volumes as part of the Packaging Waste: Producer Responsibilities.
The tool can be downloaded here.
This is a great resource for use when developing a sourcing or procurement plan prior to tendering in order to identify whether there is the potential to reduce, recycle, reuse or eliminate packaging through the life of the contract or simply to identify where questions on the sustainability credentials of packaging might form part of the tender evaluation criteria.
Over the last few years, there has been much coverage of plastic waste on TV, in the media and highlighted by leading environmental pressure groups. The UK Government has announced that from April 2022, the Plastics Packaging Tax will be introduced with a £200 per tonne tax rate for packaging with less than 30% recycled plastic. The HEPA Sustainable Packaging Group suggest that Universities might consider encouraging suppliers to adopt WRAP’s UK Plastic Pact targets which are:
There has also been much focus on single use plastics which should be eliminated wherever possible and replaced with multi-use, recycled content or plant based alternatives, but use of any material that is either excessive in terms of volume or has to go through recycling and re-manufacture processes in order to be reused is also quite wasteful.
If these alternatives are not possible, packaging should be from a sustainable source and fully recyclable or have a high recycled content.
Some of the future actions for the Sustainable Packaging and Deliveries group are to develop packaging specification guidance for procurement staff and also develop template evaluation criteria, model answers and suggested packaging KPI’s. Whilst the group will undertake research to develop these tools, if anyone has any relevant content or useful links, please send to Debbie Shore who will collate and share with the group.
