As part of MilliporeSigma’s commitment to reduce its environmental impact, the company has launched a new SMASH Packaging Plan — a four-year approach to drive improvement in the sustainability of its packaging. Through this initiative, MilliporeSigma is setting new standards and goals to shrink, secure, switch and save packaging while still meeting the required performance requirements and transit safety regulations.
These goals are organized under three categories and include specific targets for 2022. MilliporeSigma will transparently report progress toward these targets.
- Optimize Resources
- Goal: Shrink — Reduce amount of packaging
- 2022 Targets:
- New product packaging aligned with MilliporeSigma’s standards for weight and volume
- 20 key improvement projects for existing packaging
- 20 percent reduction of air space in distribution cartons
- More Sustainable Materials
- Goal: Secure — Achieve zero deforestation
2022 Targets:
- New product packaging aligned with MilliporeSigma’s zero deforestation standards
- 90 percent of existing packaging aligned with zero deforestation standards
- 100 percent of packaging from deforestation-risk countries certified sustainably sourced
- Goal: Switch — Improve plastic sustainability
2022 Targets:
- New product packaging aligned with MilliporeSigma’s plastic sustainability standards
- 20 improvement projects to replace existing plastic packaging by more sustainable solutions
- 20 percent reduction in expanded polystyrene
3. Design for Circular Economy
Goal: Save — Maximize recycling
2022 Targets:
- New product packaging aligned with MilliporeSigma’s standards for recyclability
- 100 percent of fiber-based packaging, not compatible with recycling, replaced
- 100 percent of products with packaging recycling/disposal guidance
The Life Science industry needs products quickly, efficiently and safely — calling for high-quality, high-performance packaging. MilliporeSigma is constantly working to ensure it delivers products that help meet customers’ needs, such as sterile environments, temperature control conditions and the protection of products as they are distributed around the world.
Sustainability is vital to MilliporeSigma’s customers, with nearly 90 percent of those surveyed considering it important. With this in mind, the company wants to ensure that the packaging of its more than 300,000 products is sustainable to help its business and its customers reduce environmental impacts and costs. This is especially crucial given the volume of packaging required for the approximately 30,000 packages that MilliporeSigma ships to customers globally each day. This objective drives the company’s ambition to tackle these challenges across three areas:
- Excess packaging requires more resources than needed, leads to increased logistics and is hard to dispose of.
- Sourcing packaging materials from non-sustainable sources may contribute to global issues, such as deforestation.
- Use of packaging not compatible with recycling or not properly labelled leads to excess waste to landfills and to the environment.
The SMASH Packaging Plan demonstrates MilliporeSigma’s commitment to sustainable business throughout the life cycle of its products. This four-year program will allow the company to use less packaging, select more sustainable materials and make it easier to recycle.
For more information, visit www.sigmaaldrich.com/globalCitizenship2019/greener.html#packaging.