SPHERE, a new framework from World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), aims to enable companies to make science-driven decisions to reduce their packaging impacts. Quantis contributed to the development of SPHERE, which will bring businesses closer to reaching circularity and sustainability targets by facilitating holistic environmental assessments of packaging options.
Reducing the environmental impacts of packaging is a business priority as consumer and regulatory pressure grows. But when making decisions related to packaging circularity and sustainability, businesses must evaluate trade-offs and navigate the myriad of metrics all at once.
SPHERE aims to address the limitations of existing methodologies through a comprehensive framework based on six principles: packaging efficiency, circularity, impact on climate change and biodiversity loss, absence of harmful substances and waste mismanagement. It can be used in two ways:
-
a portfolio assessment to identify potential hotspots across a range of packaging from a company-level perspective;
-
an ecodesign approach to evaluate different packaging options for a specific product.
SPHERE allows companies to prioritize action and monitor their performance. By driving impact and owning their sustainability journey, they will inspire others all over the world to minimize their packaging’s contribution to climate change and nature loss.
