Sustainable packaging product solutions
The volume of global packaging is steadily increasing and with it the negative impact on the environment. The transition to a circular economy is of essential importance to us. We want to improve the environmental impact of our product throughout their whole life cycle - including production, transport, use and disposal.
Our products play a crucial role for the safe transport as well as storage and medication of our customers' products. In many cases, our packaging solution is an integral part of the system, without some medicines would not be as user-friendly and safe. We lay the foundations for a user-friendly, safe and high-quality product early in development processand want to ensure that its environmental impact are considered from the beginning.
Our target
By 2023, we will develop Gerresheimer EcoDesign principles and apply them to 100% of our new product developments.
Our approach
Our packaging solutions are brought to market and disposed of in conjunction with our customers' products. Therefore, close cooperation with our customers is key when adressing material efficiency, energy efficiency, waste avoidance, recyclability and disposability, and logistics-friendliness of our products.
In close cooperation with our customers, we aim not only to comply with legal requirements when designing our products and the corresponding production processes, but also to integrate eco-design principles proactively and systematically.
In 2021, we have established the Gerresheimer EcoDesign Principles - Rethink, Reduce, Replace, Reuse & Recycle - which summarize our strategies to systematically develop more sustainable and recyclable product packaging systems.
The Gerresheimer EcoDesign Principles
Rethink summarizes strategies that focus on the fundamental rethinking of the existing product packaging system as such.
Reduce – do better with less
Reduce summarizes strategies that focus on resource efficiency by reducing volume, wall thickness, and additional non-essential components and materials to maintain functionality.
Replace – use more sustainable materials
Replace summarizes strategies that focus on the substitution of non-renewable primary raw materials with renewable or secondary raw materials and the avoidance of environmentally harmful input materials.
Reuse – use multiple times
Reuse summarizes strategies aimed at the reuse of (partial) components, including primary to tertiary packaging materials.
Recycle – enable a closed loop
Recycle summarizes strategies aimed at enabling recycled material streams through improved recyclability.
