PROGRESS REPORT
Emissions Reduction
At BioPak, our commitment to combating climate change is unwavering. We’ve been carbon-neutral certified for over a decade, but in 2022, we strategically shifted away from carbon-neutrality. Instead of allocating 1% of our profits to carbon offsets, we channelled these funds into our Emission Reduction Plan, supporting research, education, and advocacy projects that promote composting in our markets.
This decision wasn’t taken lightly. We recognised the need to move beyond mere carbon offsetting, especially when costs escalated without a proportional impact. It’s not a step back but a leap forward, aiming for a more substantial positive influence and a more progressive sustainability strategy.
We remain accountable by having independent third parties measure our carbon emissions both operationally and during product manufacturing, enhancing transparency through Environmental Impact Labels and annual progress reports.
Understanding our total carbon footprint is vital. We’re dedicated to clarifying the sources of our emissions and our mitigation efforts. Our emissions span the entire product lifecycle, encompassing our offices, product transportation, packaging production, raw material extraction, and end-of-life emissions.
To address this, we’ve considered a worst-case scenario – assuming our products end up in a landfill, which significantly elevates emissions due to methane release. Our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint by 50% by expanding industrial composting accessibility.
To achieve this, we continue to invest in our not-for-profit brand agnostic product stewardship program, Compost Connect, working to enhance composting infrastructure in the countries we operate.
We understand we can’t achieve this alone, but together with our customers, we can pave the way for a more sustainable world for future generations.
Lea Maguero
Head of Sustainability
Understanding BioPak’s Carbon Footprint
*These figures are based on BioPak Group's 2022 footprint. The 2023 footprint is being finalised.
36% Raw Materials & Product Manufacturing
The second largest contributor to our overall carbon footprint lies in our raw materials and product manufacturing. Working with our direct and indirect supply chain to reduce emissions associated with manufacturing isn’t an easy task, but it’s an essential piece of the puzzle and a challenge we’re taking on. We will be increasing our use of lower emissions materials, like wood, sugarcane fibre and recycled fibre.
5% Packaging for Our Products
Packaging our products in cardboard boxes and plastic sleeves accounts for 5% of our total emissions. Moving forward, we’re working on using recycled cardboard wherever possible.
6% Product Freight
As a global brand that distributes products, freight emissions are inherent. However, we work with our logistics partners to optimise our freight routes and container loading, while also avoiding airfreighting as much as possible. Lower emissions fuel vehicles and alternatives to combustion engine vehicles aren’t available at scale just yet, but we’re watching this space with anticipation.
3% Organisation Operations
As a company of over 200, we’re proud to keep our emissions associated with organisation operations at a minimum. In our Sydney headquarters, we compost all of our organic waste. We use renewable energy sources in our Sydney and New Zealand offices and are looking into options for our UK office and warehouse.
50% End-of-life Disposal
We consider the worst case scenario – the majority of our compostable products end up in landfill. If this was the case, end-of-life disposal would make up 50% of our carbon footprint (this is due to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our products breaking down in landfill). While our products are intended to be composted, this doesn’t always happen due to a lack of composting infrastructure and customer education. We hope to see this change with more time and composting infrastructure availability – something we’re investing in.
How Are We Reducing Emissions?
BioPak has been carbon neutral for more than 10 years, but it’s now clear that offsetting our business footprint isn’t going to be enough to slow down climate change. In 2022, BioPak made a strategic decision to redirect the 1% of our profits that go to carbon offsets into our Emissions Reduction Plan.
Our Emissions Reduction Plan focuses on four key steps: measure, report, plan, and reduce – these steps will increase our understanding, transparency and accountability. When measuring our carbon emissions, it’s in line with three Greenhouse Gas protocol categories, Scope 1 (Direct Emissions), Scope 2 (Indirect Emissions from Energy) and Scope 3 (Indirect Emissions), with Scope 3 having the biggest impact. We explore this more below.
Finally, evaluating what aspects of BioPak’s operations come with the greatest emissions will help guide our future decisions and actions, and ultimately pave the way to a more sustainable future.
Emissions Reduction Highlights
Scope 1
Direct Emissions – reduce direct emissions from BioPak-owned facilities.
How We’re Addressing Scope 1:
Electric Vehicles
The UK is the only region where we have company cars, and these are electric.
Recycling
Scope 2
Indirect Emissions from Energy – reduce indirect emissions that result from purchased electricity, heating, or cooling that BioPak uses.
How We’re Addressing Scope 2:
Green Energy
We purchase certified Green Energy for our Australian and New Zealand offices and are developing plans for renewable energy installation at BioPak’s UK office and warehouse with hopes to begin solar panel installation by 2025.
Focusing on Energy Efficiency
Scope 3
Indirect Emissions – reduce emissions from the entire BioPak lifecycle, including production, transportation, disposal, supply chain and employee commuting.
How We’re Addressing Scope 3:
Reduce Energy Consumption
Working with our supply chain to reduce emissions associated with manufacturing and warehousing isn’t an easy task – but it’s an essential piece of the puzzle. This year, we’ve recently co-designed new manufacturing processes for our plant fibre pulp products. This has reduced the energy required to mould the products by 40%. We’re also working with our warehousing partners to encourage them to purchase renewable energy, similar to what has been done at our New Zealand warehouses.
Focus on Lower Carbon Footprint Products
With 36% of our emissions coming from raw materials and manufacturing, this is an area we can make a big difference.
Wooden cutlery has a negative carbon footprint. Not only is wood more energy efficient than plastic when it’s manufactured, but it also stores carbon, offsetting emissions related to its product production. Between 2021 and 2024, we replaced a significant portion of our PLA bioplastic cutlery with wooden cutlery which has avoided over 1,000 tonnes of CO2-eq.
Switching to plant fibre – We’re encouraging our customers to replace plastic or PLA lids with our new plastic-free plant fibre lids with no added PFAS. By expanding our plant fibre range, we’re mitigating excess emissions associated with plastic alternatives. Not only that, plant fibre is a byproduct of sugarcane production, which means we’re helping reuse a material that would otherwise go to waste or be incinerated.
Recycled paper used in paper bags has a lower footprint than their virgin paper counterpart.
Looking to Reduce and Decarbonise Freight & Transport
Freight optimisation – We work with our logistics partners to optimise our freight routes and container loading. We avoid airfreighting as much as possible.
Decarbonising freight will be a key step in BioPak’s emissions reduction plan when low-carbon technology is available at scale. BioPak UK has taken steps to decarbonise transport freight by delivering 34,547 parcels to customers in all-electric vehicles via DPD, saving approximately 9,535 kg of CO2. BioPak is looking into expanding electrified freight across all regions in addition to freight optimisation.
End-of-life Advocacy & Education
With end-of-life disposal being the greatest contributor to our emissions, our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint by expanding industrial composting accessibility.
Compost Connect is our not-for-profit product stewardship program dedicated to education, lifting composting rates, and connecting foodservice businesses to commercial composters. By working collaboratively with the packaging, foodservice sector and composting industries, we aim to increase composting rates in the markets we operate in. We’ve recently redesigned and refreshed the Compost Connect platform and content in Australia and New Zealand. We are looking to refresh the UK website and launch Compost Connect in Singapore and Hong Kong in 2024.
Carbon Labelling and Eco-Costs– by partnering with Pickler, a progressive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software dedicated to understanding packaging’s environmental impact, BioPak can understand and inform our customers about a product’s individual carbon footprint and how that translates to more tangible metrics such as eco-costs and energy emission equivalents. This can raise awareness and allow customers to make more environmentally informed purchasing decisions.
End-of-Life assumptions – right now, our carbon emissions data is based upon the worst-case scenario – that all of our products will end up in landfill. Pickler’s Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will incorporate end-of-life disposal options specific to each region. Therefore, we expect a reduction to our end-of-life disposal emissions due to having more accurate data.
Embracing Transparency: Environmental Impact Labels
BioPak will soon unveil an independently verified ‘Environmental Impact Label’ for each product on our website, allowing for direct comparisons between products and informed consumer choices.
This label will link to a comprehensive report detailing the product’s carbon footprint and ‘eco-cost,’ along with the methodology and sources used for calculations.
BioPak utilises this data to identify areas with the greatest potential for environmental impact reduction at every stage of the product lifecycle, enabling customers to track our progress on their behalf.
We believe that by providing this information, we can enhance customer education, guide decisions, and contribute to climate change mitigation efforts, setting a precedent for the packaging industry to follow.
The Environmental Impact Report includes:
Carbon Footprint: The amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of each BioPak product across all the lifecycle stages, including raw materials, production, transport, and finally disposal. This is expressed in CO2-eq – a metric that translates all greenhouse gases into the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.
Eco-Cost: The eco-cost, calculated per carton, offers our customers a straightforward metric to understand and compare the environmental impacts of our products. It is not reflected in the product’s market price.
The eco-cost is independently calculated across four categories – biodiversity loss, effects on human health, material scarcity, as well as the more standard carbon emissions. BioPak utilises this data to identify areas with the greatest potential for environmental impact reduction.
This environment impact label will be displayed on all products online.
Our Progress
SCOPE 1: DIRECT EMISSIONS
[COMPLETE] Create an Emissions Reduction Plan
[COMPLETE] Electric vehicles
[ON TRACK] Office recycling and composting programs
All offices have a recycling program for paper, metal, glass and plastics.
In our Sydney headquarters, we compost all of our organic waste. We are looking into options for our UK office and warehouse, where organic waste collections aren’t readily available.
[ON TRACK] Scope 1 Emission Reduction Target
[DELAYED] Start a staff training and awareness program
[DELAYED] Reduce business trips
SCOPE 2: INDIRECT EMISSIONS FROM ENERGY
[COMPLETE] Renewable energy in our New Zealand and Australian operations
[ON TRACK] Scope 2 Emission Reduction Target
[ON TRACK] Renewable energy in our UK operations
SCOPE 3: INDIRECT EMISSIONS
[ON TRACK] Reduce supply chain emissions
In response to single-use plastic bans and increased consumer awareness of plastic pollution issues, we have increased our use of lower emissions materials, such as wooden cutlery (negative carbon footprint), plastic-free plant fibre and recycled paper. Wooden cutlery has a negative carbon footprint due to the carbon sequestered in the wood, and sugarcane is a reclaimed material. Recycled paper is used in fluted board products and paper bags also has a lower footprint than using virgin paper.
Between 2021 and 2024, we have been replacing a significant portion of our PLA cutlery with wooden cutlery, which has had a positive impact in terms of emissions avoidance. We are also encouraging our customers to replace plastic or PLA lids with our new plastic-free plant fibre lids with no added PFAS.
We have co-designed a new manufacturing process with our BioCane manufacturing partner to dramatically reduce energy requirements.
We have taken steps to reduce our impact on the planet, including replacing our conventional plastic lids with plant fibre pulp lids with no intentionally added PFAS, and redesigning our supplier scorecard to measure our manufacturing partners’ environmental policies and programs. The scorecard is being used across our global supply chain.
We are investigating options to manufacture some of our BioCane range locally in Australia.
Our main PLA supplier is working on building a PLA manufacturing plant in Thailand, closer to our manufacturing partners to reduce our footprint.
[ON TRACK] Emission reduction via supplier engagement and education
We are investigating the viability of engaging with suppliers to make the move toward renewable energy and looking into renewable energy sourcing in regions where our top 20% of suppliers are located.
Additionally, as we make progress developing our Science Based Targets we hope to engage with suppliers to educate them on our SBTis journey and make clear our decarbonisation strategy moving forward.
[ON TRACK] Reduce end-of-life emissions
We are continuously improving and growing Compost Connect, a brand-agnostic product stewardship scheme that was set up by BioPak in 2021.
We will invest 1% of our turnover in projects, technologies or organisations that can help grow the availability of end-of-life processing for compostable packaging in the markets we operate in.
Greenhouse gases are emitted when our products break down in landfill. It’s essential to note that a significant portion of our carbon emissions (50%) comes from the disposal of our products at the end of their lifecycle, assuming they end up in landfills. While our products are intended to be composted, this doesn’t always happen due to a lack of composting infrastructure and customer education. By working collaboratively with the packaging, foodservice and composting industries via our not-for-profit product stewardship program, Compost Connect, we aim to increase the composting rate of food waste and compostable packaging in the markets we operate in.
By applying regional-specific end-of-life assumptions for our customers, thanks to new technologies like the Pickler software, we can better inform them of the carbon footprint associated with their purchase and allow them to make more environmentally conscious product choices.
[ON TRACK] Optimise freight routes
[ON TRACK] Decarbonise freight
BioPak UK has taken steps to decarbonise transport freight by delivering 34,547 parcels to customers in all-electric vehicles via DPD, saving approximately 9,535 kg of CO2.
BioPak is looking into expanding electrified freight across all regions in addition to freight optimisation.
[ON TRACK] Scope 3 Emission Reduction Target
[DELAYED] Renewable energy in our supply chain
BioPak’s Carbon Sequestration and Storage Efforts
[ON TRACK] Reduce emissions with rainforest protection and regeneration
BioPak has been donating 1% of profits to Rainforest Rescue since 2012. To date, our donations have helped secure, rescue and replant land in the Daintree National Rainforest in Australia, helping to protect the unique flora and fauna of this biodiverse and fragile ecosystem.
BioPak’s protection of 1.05 hectares of mature tropical forests in 2023 has helped hold 857 tonnes of CO2 which is stored in the trees over their lifetime. The 2.3 hectares of trees BioPak has helped plant on cleared damaged land, plus ongoing growth of plantings from previous years has sequestered 320 tonnes of CO2 in 2023 – an amount which will keep growing as the trees mature. To put these tonnes into perspective, 1,177 tonnes of carbon dioxide is equivalent to removing 420 cars from the road for a year!
Responsible Supply Chain
