Packaging is a major part of the food and drinks sector. As awareness grows of the need to minimise the environmental impact of packaging throughout the product life-cycle, innovative companies are looking to ecodesign principles for improvements. 

One area of improvement is to reduce packaging weight, in terms of material used per unit, without compromising on function, safety or quality. 'Lightweighting' like this is a long-established means of reducing both the environmental impact of packaging and food waste. 

Green architecture, by design 

• Air heat pump produces 2.2 times more energy than it consumes
• 82 m2 of photovoltaic panels produce 11 600 kWh per year

Fluid’ Concept, a design agency specialising in the construction and renovation of buildings with very low-energy consumption, decided in 2008 to build a new head office in Neufchâteau, France. They saw it as an opportunity to showcase the company’s design strengths and improve its 'green' image.

Marriage of design and environmental ambition!

• Strong energy management measures and renewable energy installations (PV and Canadian well) 
• Net-positive energy building, selling € 12 000 in surplus electricity yearly
• 138 m2 of PV panels produce over 20 MWh a year

Dugarry, a French architectural firm, wanted to showacase their green design credentials and at the same time create an environmentally friendly building for their new premises. 

Ice pigging is an efficient method to remove sediment from pipelines, for example in food-manufacturing plants. As the semi-solid ice slurry is pumped through the system, it scrapes the pipes and tanks to recover useable food product, rather than the organic material being lost in the effluent. Ice pigging has the huge advantage that the slurry can be driven around bends, through narrow passages, across heat exchangers, etc. Standard pigs (objects which dislodge solid material prior to cleaning with water and then detergents) can only be used across straight pipes. 

Leading by example...​

Energy savings, no extra cost!

• Energy audit revealed simple, effective measures
• 10-12 % energy savings

Plast Petter AB is a small Swedish manufacturer of plastic products mainly for use in offices. The products are cut, welded and glued together.

The company uses energy from oil and electricity, around 320 MWh and 550 MWh every year respectively.

An energy checkup carried out at the company revealed several measures that could yield positive results. These included:

Comprehensive environmental gains

Clean and lean water use

• Installation of drip-feed irrigation system reduces water consumption by 5 100 m3 and saves ~€ 7 000 per year
• Reorganising tank cleaning saves € 800 and cuts yearly water consumption by 1 200 m3

A winery located in Southeast Europe significantly decreased its water consumption through a clever rethinking of its irrigation and cleaning processes.

Comfort... hard to quantify but worth investing in

• Heat recovery saves money, improves working comfort in winter
• Resulted in annual savings of 218 MWh of heat (equivalent to over € 17 000) 

A company producing cables for electricity infrastructure located in the Czech Republic carried out a comprehensive energy audit resulting in several energy-saving measures. One of the proposals was to reuse waste heat from two production areas to warm adjacent halls.

Excellent recovery!

• Recovering heat saves on energy and cuts CO2
• Results in annual energy efficiency gains (~3.5 %) and less CO2 emissions (~600 000 kg)

Carlsberg brewery is an energy-savings front-runner in line with its mission to optimise production and reduce overall CO2 emissions and energy consumption costs.