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Minutes of the Packaging LCA Scoping Group - 7 November 2007
The group met for the first time by phone on 7 November 2007. Present were Joe Catanio, Bill Heenan, Ken Martchek, Keith Christman, Dennis Sabourin, Rita Schenck and Amy Zettlemoyer.
Amy explained how she views this effort as a sub-committee to the Wal-Mart packaging SVN, and is interested in seeing that this work move forward. There is substantial interest in this work and some stakeholders (e.g. the sustainable packaging network) are concerned that it may interfere with the current effort to provide cradle-to-gate data for the scorecard. The stakeholders need to be in the loop on what we may do.
We discussed the need for a coordinated effort towards scoping LCA for packaging. Several efforts are already underway. The steel and aluminum industries are working with the Can Manufacturing Institute to develop the can production unit process inventory data. The glass industry is working with its European colleagues to develop its LCI cradle-to-container, but there are several challenges because the North American market is typically one-use containers, while in the EU, glass containers are typically re-used 20 to 50 times.
There was consensus that a coordinated effort is needed, and that ideally the scope should be cradle to grave. Since the goal is not only to scope a single container, but to provide a guideline document on how to do scoping, we should choose a container that is produced as many different ways and from as many different materials as possible. This allows all industry sectors to participate in developing the level playing field. The group suggested that we pick a container for food, and that we involve the paper industry in our discussions. Amy said that she would find the right person(s) in the paper industry to participate.
Finding the right technical people to participate will be a challenge for all industry sectors. They may well be people working for members of the associations, rather than association staff themselves. Everyone undertakes to identify technical resources for this effort, and to have internal discussions on options for the container to be scoped.
We all agreed that at least one face-to-face meeting of the technical people was needed to start the work.
We discussed funding for this effort. Everyone agreed to look to their organizations and have discussions on this topic. Scoping is much less expensive than developing the inventory, but doing the scoping right will decrease the potential cost of re-working data in the future. Amy asked for a range of scenarios for IERE’s efforts and the cost of those.
To summarize, some decisions were made:
1. We should move forward on this scoping effort.
2. The container should be one made as many different ways as possible (possibly a food container).
3. The scope should be cradle to grave.
4. We should plan at least one face-to-face meeting.We all have agreed to discuss this project internally before the next meeting, and
1. Identify industry experts;
2. Discuss funding;
3. Discuss/identify possible containers as subject of scoping.Amy will find the right people in the paper industry
Rita will provide IERE cost scenarios to Amy.
Our next meeting will be by conference call (same call-in information) on November 26th at 8:00 am Pacific, 10:00 am Central, 11:00 am Eastern. Additional experts are welcome.