MeadWestvaco’s Natralock Answers Call for Sustainable Packaging Systems

Material Health Values
While cost reductions are important to any business, the heart of investing in sustainable packaging solutions is to reduce the environmental impact of packaging. Seeking to measure the impact made by each system, the firm used a methodology based on the MERGE Lifecycle Assessment Tool to calculate and analyze four material health values:
• The grams of raw materials used to produce the packaging materials
• Energy used to produce the packaging materials
• The carbon equivalents of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted during packaging material production and recycling or disposal
• A weighted average of chemical “bad actors” used for production – as defined by groups including the Environmental Protection Agency