Search Results (3)

Packaging is a fundamental component of food supply chains, enabling product protection, handling, and distribution from production to final consumption. In this context, the selection of secondary and tertiary packaging dimensions plays a critical role in improving logistics efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with material use and transportation. This study proposes a sustainable packaging logistics (SPL) framework that systematically evaluates and optimizes packaging carton dimensions to enhance pallet utilization, transport efficiency, and packaging material efficiency. The framework is applied to a real-world case study from a meat processing company, demonstrating how alternative carton dimension configurations, while maintaining a constant product weight and functional equivalence, can significantly influence pallet-loading efficiency, transported payload, and associated CO₂-equivalent emissions. Rather than constituting a full life cycle assessment (LCA), the proposed approach adopts LCA-informed indicators to quantify material and transport related emission implications of packaging design choices. By integrating packaging design, palletization constraints, and logistics performance, the SPL framework provides a structured analytical basis for identifying packaging configurations that reduce material intensity and transport-related emissions. The results highlight the importance of packaging dimension optimization as a practical and scalable strategy for emission reduction in food supply chains. The proposed framework is intended to support decision-making in packaging design and to serve as a robust preparatory tool for future, more comprehensive LCA studies. Full article

Packaging design is one of the potential strategies for increasing logistics performance, not only from a cost reduction perspective, but also from a sustainable point of view. The deployment of a sustainable vision in packaging design should demand a holistic view of packaging, supply chain and product; this integrated vision is the main point of the “Sustainable Packaging Logistics” (SPL) approach. At a logistics level, a key link with the different stages of the supply chain is the secondary packaging, which most commonly takes the form of a corrugated cardboard box. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to develop a systematic and dynamic method that makes it possible to connect design decisions about the dimensions of that box with their impact on overall efficiency and sustainability of the supply chain. In order to develop this model, the impact on three different logistics systems is described. Those systems are palletizing, multimodal containers and parcel services. Likewise, in addition to proposing the theoretical model, the authors have tested it successfully in three different companies (with the three logistics systems mentioned) following the “action research” approach. Full article

Packaging is one element that can support and promote improvements and innovations in sustainable management of supply chains. This multifunctional vision has brought about the approach “sustainable packaging logistics” (SPL), which refers to the integration of packaging design, logistics management and new product development. The main aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to characterise the main aspects associated with SPL as a preliminary step towards constructing a conceptual model that can be validated in a quantitative way. Secondly, to carry out an exploratory study in the Spanish toy manufacturing sector in order to identify whether SPL deployment promotes changes and innovations in packaging that can lead to improved sustainability. The literature review was conducted via content analysis, and the methodology used to carry out empirical analysis was an electronic questionnaire dealing with aspects of SPL. The number of toy manufacturers participating in the study was 70. The results analysis indicates that further development of the main aspects of SPL actively contributes to better sustainable performance in almost all items considered in the study. The SPL approach is considered particularly innovative, because there is a scarcity of literature that deals jointly with packaging, logistics and sustainability from an empirical standpoint, rather than just the analysis of case studies. Full article