E-Pack

Ecommerce continues to grow and therefore the demand for more sustainable packaging solutions is on the rise. In the project E-Pack VIL will study the opportunities of reusable packaging in the B2C market.

On the one hand, consumers don’t like huge amounts of card board shipping boxes and other packaging of their online purchases. On the other hand, the logistics sector is asking for more uniformity and robustness in packaging.

More uniformity must lead to the simplification of handling, better stackability, more automated packing and sorting possibilities and lower costs. More robust packaging offers a better protection of the contents and lower chance of damage during transportation and logistics processes.

In this project, VIL will introduce reusable packaging in the B2C market to stimulate local and sustainable online business.

This project offers opportunities for more standardization (efficient transportation and automated packaging processes), for better meeting customer demand and for possible new initiatives that can lead to profitable business models (e.g. pooling reusable packaging).

• Gaining insight in the demands for reusable packaging
• Gaining insight in the role and impact of the customer: what would it take for getting the consumer to use the reusable packaging?
• Developing return scenarios: how to organize it cost-efficiently and ecologically?
• Evaluating the logistic return concepts from a broad scope
• Developing a Proof of Concept and lessons learned

• A scientific consensus was described on sustainable packaging within the current single-use concept. Based on this consensus, it was decided that a trader can use to analyse their current packaging range to make sustainability optimizations. VITO has developed a proposal whereby a packaging scan can be carried out based on these solutions and a scoring system to encourage companies to implement optimizations.
  
• The existing knowledge and (scientific) consensus on sustainability of the various delivery methods of online commerce were made transparent and quantified. For this purpose, a uniform calculation method has been drawn up that allows traders to correctly inform their consumers about the external impact of the delivery options offered to them. Not only CO² but also matters such as particulate matter, congestion, noise pollution and the like were included in the calculation). The calculation method shows that if every online buyer chooses the most sustainable method, the external impact of e-commerce can be reduced by 21%.