Measure environmental impact of damaged products
Pregis, a manufacturer of protective packaging, has developed a method to measure the environmental impact of products damaged in transit.
For years, Pregis has been able to help companies quantify the cost of damage to their bottom line, but now the company has added EcoGauge, a proprietary calculator that quantifies the environmental impact.
Several key metrics, including the annual number of shipments, average individual weight and damage percentage are used to determine environmental impact (electricity, forestry, natural gas, gasoline, solid waste, CO2, methane and habitat loss).
“Traditionally, the environmental focus has been on material selection and recycling. While those are very important considerations, equally as important is the environmental impact of goods received by consumers in a damaged, unusable condition. We estimate that these goods—due to incorrect material/structure choices and packing methods—account for more than 5 billion pounds entering North American landfills, annually. We estimate a similar impact in Europe. Many times, this is the result of the economic cost to return items that may or may not be able to be repaired, so consumers frequently dispose of them,” said Clint Smith, director of sustainable packaging, Pregis.