{"id":169641,"date":"2025-10-30T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T06:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=169641"},"modified":"2025-10-27T11:02:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T10:02:51","slug":"there-is-no-best-material-shows-polyvia-quantis-study-on-packagings-environmental-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/there-is-no-best-material-shows-polyvia-quantis-study-on-packagings-environmental-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"“There is no best material\u201d shows Polyvia, Quantis study on packaging\u2019s environmental impact"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Polyvia, the French federation of plastics, commissioned Quantis to conduct a scientific study on the environmental impact of packaging for all major material families. It also explores the effects of future technological developments. The goal? To inform manufacturers and their clients about the levers needed to transition to a more circular economy.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"With
With the study, Polyvia aims to offer a “scientific perspective” on plastic packaging \u00a9 Polyvia<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

BCG-owned consulting firm Quantis has just completed a study aimed at comparing the environmental profile and circularity of packaging based on their manufacturing materials. Commissioned and funded by Polyvia<\/a>, the federation of the French plastics and composite materials industry, this study aims to be objective and unbiased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the initiative is intended to support plastic packaging manufacturers. “In light of the ongoing plastic bashing, we wanted to provide a scientific perspective, which is why we turned to Quantis, a firm with undeniable legitimacy in CSR,” stated Pierre-Jean Leduc, President of Polyvia, at a press conference. “Our objective is to enlighten and act. We aim to inform the decisions of private and public stakeholders, to convince market players that our products have advantages, and to provide a roadmap for our member manufacturers who need guidance to prepare for the future.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of circularity at the heart of the project<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Both multi-material and multi-sectoral, Quantis’s analysis focuses on the most common packaging in four markets: food, the B2B industry, pharmaceuticals, and hygiene-beauty. Luxury products, however, characterized for example by sophisticated decoration techniques, were not a specific area of study. However, wines and spirits as well as high-end cosmetics can be correlated with some examples from the food and hygiene-beauty sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 29 use cases were modeled, associated with 130 examples of primary and secondary packaging (excluding transport packaging). Each use case corresponds to a type of content with its own functional needs: food in various forms, fertilizers, automotive parts, deodorant spray, soap, tablets, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To achieve this, Quantis applied a life cycle analysis, relying in particular on the Product Environmental Footprint method developed by the European Commission. The resulting data was cross-referenced with the Material Circularity Indicator, a circularity index developed with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of circularity is at the heart of this project, given that the environmental performance of packaging largely depends on its ability to be recycled and\/or reused, as well as to incorporate a share of recycled material. Added to these three parameters are the weight of materials and the energy consumption of the manufacturing processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evolution of existing solutions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Beyond analyzing existing solutions, the study offers a vision of the possible evolution of their environmental effectiveness. “We have developed prospective scenarios to anticipate what could happen by 2040,” notes Paul Spitzmuller, Sustainability Strategist at Quantis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two types of scenarios were identified: one based on technological and industrial advancements, such as lightweighting, optical sorting, and chemical recycling; the other on the evolution of regulations and public policies, with the PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) likely to profoundly change waste sorting practices at the source and reuse.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Plastics
Plastics may be lightweight, but there is much progress to be made in recycling and integrating recycled grades \u00a9 Polyvia\/Texen<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It all depends on context<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The results vary depending on the materials and markets. When looking at food and hygiene\/beauty, a few generalities emerge. Plastics benefit from their lightweight advantages, but lag in recycling and the integration of recycled material. For the future, the sector will rely mainly on chemical recycling and improvements in collection, which would increase the quantities of available materials. In contrast, glass, which is heavy and energy-intensive, but has a well-organized recycling system, could expand its prospects through reuse and deposit systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For metals such as steel and aluminum, the decarbonization of production through new energy mixes appears to be an important factor for future development. Paper and cardboard seem to have less room for improvement because their production impacts on the environment less than other materials studied, and their recycling systems are mature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There is no ‘best material\u2019 across the board. Each has its strengths and weaknesses as well as potential for improvement,” concludes Spitzmuller. For its part, Polyvia prioritizes recycling and relies on innovation. The circular economy represents more than half of the R&D budget of its technical center IPC, and five diplomas awarded by its training center ISPA are dedicated to the principle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polyvia, the French federation of plastics, commissioned Quantis to conduct a scientific study on the environmental impact of packaging for all major material families. It also explores the effects of future technological developments. The goal? To inform manufacturers and their clients about the levers needed to transition to a more circular economy. BCG-owned consulting firm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":169659,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"BCG-owned consulting firm Quantis has just completed a study aimed at comparing the environmental profile and circularity of packaging based on their manufacturing materials","footnotes":""},"categories":[17143],"tags":[17299,17202,10416,20578,15794,7105,25972],"supplier":[7281,2317,27112,14682],"class_list":["post-169641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recycling","tag-biomanufacturing","tag-chemicalrecycling","tag-circulareconomy","tag-environmentalfootprint","tag-lca","tag-packaging","tag-sorting","supplier-ellen-macarthur-foundation","supplier-european-commission","supplier-polyvia","supplier-quantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169641"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=169641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}