The winners of the commercialized innovations & initiatives categories of the Sustainability Awards 2022 – as well as our annual Readers’ Award – were revealed last night at the Sustainable Packaging Summit, in Lisbon.
Firstly, the award for Overall Winner went to Sigwerk, with its UniNATURE packaging inks formulated with a high Bio Renewable Content.
Other winners included R-Cycle, Henkel, Boston Consulting Group, Amcor Healthcare, Aptar and Tonejet.
In addition, the winner of our Readers’ Award went to Vandemoortele & MCC Verstraete for the SealPPeel packaging solution.
Let’s take a closer look at our winning entries:
As mentioned, the overall ‘Most Sustainable Innovation’ award, as well as the award for ‘Renewable Materials’, went to Siegwerk’s UniNATURE packaging inks. These contribute to defossilization by partially replacing fossil carbon with biorenewable carbon. Natural and conventional resins, from bio-sourced monomers, are combined so customers can use UniNATURE inks without process adjustments. UniNATURE inks also benefit from improved ink stability and lower VOC content.
The range incorporates up to 50% renewable carbon content – up to nine times more compared to standard water-based inks. The range provides an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional inks without impacting the recyclability of paper and board packaging, and also contributes to reducing microplastics in inks.
The award for ‘Driving the Circular Economy’ went to R-Cycle’s digital product passport for plastics. As a platform for all stakeholders along the packaging lifecycle, this solution automatically collects and provides recycling-relevant data in an open standard format during packaging production and makes it accessible for improved waste sorting and further applications to improve sustainability.
The winner in the ’Climate’ category was Henkel’s Technomelt Supra ECO carbon-negative packaging hot melt, which the company tells us has the potential to exceed more than 80% bio-based raw material input without compromising on performance.
According to the company, the industry standard for hot melt adhesives with packaging applications is up to 50% bio-based raw material. However, it notes that when bio-based content exceeded the 50% threshold, processing inefficiencies arouse for producers, such a slower line speeds or shorter equipment cleaning cycles, reportedly preventing companies from moving beyond this amount.
Boston Consulting Group’s CO2 AI won out in the ‘Best Practice’ category. This is an end-to-end, ready-to-deploy, AI-powered digital solution that corporations from all industries can use to quantify emissions accurately – and find solutions to reduce them at scale.
According to one of the company’s clients: “CO2 AI is the most comprehensive E2E tool for sustainability on the market and most advanced decision support tool”.
AmSky by Amcor Healthcare received the award for ‘Recyclable Packaging’. AmSky is a recycle ready, High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE)-based pharmaceutical and nutraceutical blister packaging system that is designed to be a drop-in replacement for existing thermoformed blister packaging applications that currently use PVC/Foil.
The combination of PVC/Foil is one of the least sustainable packaging combinations in all of packaging.
The ‘E-Commerce’ award when to Aptar for its monomaterial ‘Future’ pump, which combines eco-design principles with cutting-edge innovation: monomaterial PE, fully recyclable, and e-commerce ISTA6-compliant.
An easy-to-use pump featuring an incorporated on/off locking system with a 360°-degree rotator, available in two dosages and neck sizes, suitable for a large range of viscosities and PCR FDA capable.
Tonejet’ s Cyclone C4+ was the winner in the ‘Machinery’ category. Cyclone C4+ is a direct digital can printing system which replaces pressure sensitive labels and shrink sleeves for short run beverage can decoration.
The system prints directly onto the can which stays 100% recyclable. Brewers will cut costs, save time and no longer need to wrap cans in plastic!
And finally… the 2022 Readers’ Award, selected by you, the Packaging Europe Audience, went to SealPPeel packaging from Vandemoortele & MCC Verstraete. SealPPeel is a heat seal die-cut lidding innovation made from PP, which allows PP packs to become fully mono-material.
According to the company, this solution ‘drastically increases the chances of the packaging getting recycled into valuable rPP; while simultaneously increasing the shelf appeal thanks to superior print quality’.
That concludes our round-up of the Commercialized winner categories – but of course there’s more to come! Winners of our Pre-Commercialized Sustainability Awards categories will be announced in Amsterdam on 14th November, co-located with the Innovation Horizon conference (part of the Sustainable Packaging Summit series of events) and the AIPIA Active and Intelligent Packaging World Congress. Register here to join us at the event.
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