Life Cycle Assessment of beverage packaging systems: a case study for Mexico

Abstract

As companies from the manufacturing sector define their sustainability strategy to meet global, national and internal goals, the need for reliable scientific data related to their environmental footprint, which supports decision making, has become more critical in the last years. The Mexican beverage industry has a significant weight in the national economy. By 2019 this industry was responsible for 1.9% of national GDP and was a source of employment for more than 1.5 million people. Although most of the largest companies track their environmental footprint and publish them in sustainability reports, there is no data related to far-reaching sustainability assessment such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This work presents the implementation of an environmental LCA for four different packaging systems used by Mexican beverage companies (Non-returnable PET, refillable PET, refillable glass bottles and aluminium cans). This study includes a comprehensive literature review to know the tendencies, novelties and main results obtained with the execution of LCA for beverage packaging systems. The literature review allowed the identification of similar studies to this work which made it possible to compare and validate the results obtained. The LCA study considered the raw materials extraction, packaging manufacture, finished product manufacture, distribution, retail, washing and end-of-life stages. The goals of this LCA were: i) to determine and compare the environmental impacts generated by four beverage packaging systems offered in Mexico from a cradle-to-grave scope and ii) to identify the Hot Spots of each packaging system. Data inventory was built by using the ECOINVENT database, peer-reviewed publications and public data from industry. This study executed CML, AWARE and Cumulative Energy Demand impact assessments. The results of the study revealed that the NRPET bottle has the best environmental performance since it has a GWP of 174.45 kg CO2eq while RGB has the worst performance with 1152.95 kg CO2eq when considering a single life cycle. On the contrary, if evaluating multiple cycles, the REFPET system performed better since the average GWP per cycle is 50.26 45 kg CO2eq if the packaging last at least 15 cycles. Moreover, the packaging manufacture stage is the most significant contributor for GWP and WF. The results intend: i) to provide scientific-based data for the beverage industry stakeholders, ii) to make possible a better understanding of their environmental footprint and iii) to lead decision-making based on Life Cycle Thinking. Finally, recommendations were set to enable beverage companies to reinforce or adapt their sustainability policy in other for them to achieve a sustainable supply chain.