Greening fast food packaging: A roadmap to best practices
The Dogwood Alliance reports on the eight key steps companies should take to make packaging more environmentally friendly.
Ranging from material reduction to life cycle analyses, the steps include examples of what major brands are already doing to lower the impact of their packaging.
The Dogwood Alliance also include a number of strategies for companies to follow for each step.
1. Embrace corporate leadership on sustainability: Adopt an environmental packaging policy and get buy-in from leadership.
2. Use a full life cycle and supply chain approach: Determine the complete scope of impacts from packaging along the entire supply chain.
3. Reduce overall packaging and increase efficiency: Minimize packaging, make it lighter.
4. Increase use of recycled fiber
5. Eliminate paper from controversial forestry practices (with this step, Dogwood Alliance wades into the ongoing debate on sustainable forestry, urging companies should use only paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and avoid paper certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.)
6. Increase in-store recycling and recovery: Provide recycling within restaurants and encourage recycling when customers take packaging away.
7. Eliminate toxic inks and labels.
8 Reduce carbon footprint: Make transportation more efficient through better shipping setups and fuel-efficient vehicles.
