Sustainable Secondary Packaging for Life Science Industry : A case study with Cytiva

Abstract: Sustainable development has become preeminent for government and corporations as the awareness of environmental impact of human activities increases. Integration of sustainability in supply chains requires companies to look at all three pillars of sustainability. Yet, environmental sustainability remains the most prominent and it has popularized terms like carbon footprint and carbon emissions between academics and professionals. Under supply chain, logistics remain a key strategic factor for companies to gain competitive advantage. Packaging fulfills the functional requirements of logistics, marketing, and the environment. This case study, based on active research is conducted using field notes, interviews, participant observation and corporate documents, aims to contribute to the academic field of packaging and sustainability in packaging process, by revealing the relationship between the secondary packaging and transportation emissions, as well as criteria for assessing secondary packaging material for sustainability. This topic is hence relevant and adds on to the current research conducted on packaging logistics and sustainability in secondary packaging. The research is based on existing literature and is supplemented with an empirical case study of a global life science company. The empirical setup enables to explore the relationship between secondary packaging and transportation emissions with a real-life example and enables to create a framework for sustainable assessment of secondary packaging process that focusses on volume optimization and a circular approach.