Product Life Cycle Assessment
Our product life cycle assessment (LCA) helps our customers understand the environmental impacts of products and packaging solutions.
Taking informed product decision
Consumers across the globe call on companies and brands to lead the way to more sustainable consumption and a circular economy. Clear and credible information on the environmental footprint of product and packaging solutions will enable better decision-making.
Mondi supports customers with tailored and science-based assessments on the environmental impacts of products and packaging solutions:
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A range of different tools and parameters to better understand the environmental impacts of paper-based packaging, flexible packaging, and hybrid solutions.
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Life cycle-based analysis with tailored information including climate impact (carbon), water scarcity and other sustainability performance indicators.
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These tools and expert analysis support better decision-making for solutions that are sustainable by design.
Holistic thinking
At Mondi, we have a unique understanding of potential trade-offs between packaging materials given our wide range of paper-based and flexible plastic packaging solutions. With our Mondi Action Plan 2030 (MAP2030) we are committed to make 100% of our packaging and paper solutions reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
With our holistic thinking and assortment of tools and KPIs to assess a product’s environmental impact, we support our customers in making more sustainable decisions and thereby help them to meet their own sustainability goals.
What is a life cycle assessment?
A life cycle assessment (LCA) helps to understand the sources of environmental impacts throughout an entire life cycle of a product or packaging solution - from raw material acquisition through production, use and end-of-life treatment, such as recycling, incinerating and landfilling. With so many aspects to consider, we are collaborating closely with our customers to assess the environmental impacts of different packaging solutions. See our illustration of stages that might be considered in a life cycle assessment. It also contains examples of key drivers of impacts at each stage.
Our range of life cycle assessment tools
The Mondi “Product Impact Assessment” (PIA) tool offers life cycle-based analyses for flexible packaging, hybrid and paper-based solutions from our converting operations. In addition to carbon and water scarcity, the tool also features key performance indicators addressing aspects in sustainable design of products, such as ‘share of renewable content‘, ‘designed for recycling‘ or ‘share of recycled content‘.
We offer Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) assessments to evaluate the environmental impacts of our paper-based solutions from our pulp and paper mills. The analysis is based on Cepi’s 10 Toes framework and assesses climate change parameters such as greenhouse gas emissions from producing fibre, purchased energy, transport and product use.
We offer Paper Profile for fibre-based products, a uniform environmental product declaration offered by some 19 European pulp and paper companies, helping paper buyers to compare pulp and paper products across different suppliers. The tool gathers information on a pulp, paper and paperboard product’s environmental credentials for well informed product choices.
We use ISO 14040-compliant, peer-reviewed LCA studies for more comprehensive product impact assessments. These analyses are particularly useful to assess the environmental impacts of key innovations and technologies.
Review of our methods and calculation approach
As part of our evolving offer to support our customers with tailored and science-based life cycle assessments, we have now taken the next steps: In 2023, the method and calculation approach for our Product Impact Assessment & Product Carbon Footprint tool have been critically reviewed by denkstatt, a leading sustainability consultancy based in Austria.
The inhouse tool fulfils the described requirements for methodology, data quality, results/interpretation and transparency. The review confirmed that the streamlined LCA approach is methodologically compliant with the requirements of ISO 14040/44 and ISO 14067 as well as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol – Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard.
See the full critical review statement.
Sustainable solutions
We apply a customer-centric approach to all our products and solutions using paper where possible, plastic when useful.
