Expanding LCA Training for the Packaging Industry with Trayak

The use of life cycle asessments (LCA) to develop an understanding of a company’s packaging footprint and impact areas has grown exponentially in recent years.

An LCA refers to a comprehensive analysis of the environmental impact of a product or service throughout its life cycle—from raw material extraction to disposal and everything in between. Stages of the value chain that LCAs can cover for packaging include raw material extraction, manufacturing / processing, transportation, and end-of-life disposal.

LCAs provide packaging professionals the opportunity to truly understand the impact of a single package amongst numerous environmental variables, compare two different packaging systems on selected environmental variables, and make data-driven decisions to pinpoint areas of focus and improve packaging sustainability.

Many large firms have their own internal and proprietary LCA tools, however, there are multiple opportunities for smaller organizations without the budget or company size to develop and manage their own tools.

We decided to partner with Trayak and license their EcoImpact-COMPASS LCA tool to train people in the packaging industry to use LCA software for measuring the environmental impacts of their packaging systems.

EcoImpact-COMPASS is an online ISO 14040 compliant LCA platform that allows users to input data about each stage of their package’s life cycle (at primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging levels) and run numerous analyses that offer performance insight on identified environmental indicators.

EcoImpact users can generate multiple sustainability and environmental impact reports, offering different ways to turn complex environmental data into visual stories for various types of stakeholders.

The module covering an overview and tutorial of EcoImpact COMPASS will be part of our newest certificate program—The Certificate of Sustainable Packaging (CSP).

The 40-hour online certificate program covers the following objectives:

• Define the key terminology needed to speak the language of sustainability with colleagues and customers

• Construct UN-based sustainability targets

• Develop sustainable system designs (on a material level)

• Measure the carbon footprint of your packaging

• Select relevant offset programs to achieve carbon neutrality at a per product / package level

• Assess environmental performance criteria through a license to an LCA software (ISO 14040/14044 compliant) designed to evaluate packaging systems

• Gain insight to help guide concept development, R&D and evaluating alternatives, material selection, and more

Learn to navigate the complexities of sustainable packaging design from concept to lifelong impact with our 40-hour workshop consisting of pre-recorded lectures, presentations, downloaded PDFs, exercises / assignments, and more!

Learn more about the Certificate of Sustainable Packaging here!