Emissions Reduction

At BioPak, we're serious about taking action to fight climate change. Reducing our carbon emissions is vital to achieving this goal. We've been certified carbon neutral for over a decade, but 2022 will be our last year. Instead, we will invest the 1% of profits we usually spend on buying carbon offsets into our new Emission Reduction Plan funding research, education and advocacy projects that will grow the availability of composting as an end-of-life option in the markets we operate in.

Deciding not to renew our carbon-neutral certification is not a decision we've made lightly. After a lengthy investigation, we determined BioPak need to do more than carbon offsetting. We decided we needed an alternative when costs increased ten-fold without making ten times the impact. This is certainly not a step backwards, but a jump forward to create a more positive impact. 

We will continue to measure our carbon emissions by an independent third party and increase our transparency with carbon labelling and annual progress reporting to hold ourselves accountable for our impact on the environment.

The emission intensity of our products is estimated based on the assumption that they'll end up in a landfill – a worst-case scenario for our products. Disposing of our products in landfill creates a lot more carbon equivalent emissions than composting because of methane released when waste breaks down in the absence of oxygen in landfill. The end-of-life phase of our products makes up a significant amount of our carbon footprint as a business – our goal is for our customers and their customers to all have access to industrial composting, potentially reducing our carbon footprint by 50%.

To achieve this we will continue investing in our not-for-profit product stewardship program, Compost Connect, to improve the availability and affordability of composting infrastructure in the countries we operate in.

We know that we can't do it alone, but together with our customers, we can create a more sustainable world for future generations.

Lea Maguero,
Head of Sustainability

Scope 1:
Direct Emissions

Reduce direct emissions from
BioPak-owned facilities

Scope 2:
Indirect Emission from Energy

Reduce indirect emissions that result from purchased electricity, heating, or cooling that BioPak uses

Scope 3:
Indirect Emissions

Reduce emissions from the entire BioPak lifecycle of our company's products or services, including production, transportation, and disposal, as well as emissions from the supply chain, employee commuting

How Are We Reducing Emissions?

As a business, it's crucial to understand your total carbon footprint. To be transparent with our customers and users of our products, we want to clearly explain where our emissions come from and what actions we take to reduce them. Our emissions are not just from manufacturing products; we also need to consider other factors that are often overlooked. At BioPak, we work with an independent third party to assess the emissions from our operations and our entire products’ lifecycle. This includes, our offices, transportation of our products, production of packaging materials, extraction of raw materials, and the carbon emissions at the end of our products’ useful life.

How Are We Reducing Emissions?

36 % Raw materials & Product Manufacturing 

We will be increasing our use of lower emissions materials, such as wood, sugarcane fibre, and recycled fibre. Wooden cutlery has a negative carbon footprint due to the carbon sequestered in the wood, and sugarcane is a reclaimed material. Recycled paper used in fluted board products and paper bags also have a lower footprint.

Between 2021 and 2022, 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 (over 1,000 tonnes of co2-eq). We are also encouraging our customers to replace plastic or PLA lids with our new plastic-free plant fibre lids with no added PFAS.

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. Our team works to advise some of our facilities on cleaner energy sources, more efficient processes and better waste management. For instance, we have recently co-designed new manufacturing processes for our plant fibre products that reduce the energy required to mould the products by 40%.

We are working with our warehousing partners to encourage them to purchase renewable energy to power their facilities. 

5% Packaging for our products

Packaging our products in cardboard boxes and plastic sleeves accounts for 5% of our total emissions. We are working on using recycled cardboard wherever possible. 

6% Product Freight

We work with our logistics partners to optimise our freight routes and container loading. We avoid airfreighting as much as possible. While lower emissions fuel vehicles and alternatives to combustion engine vehicles aren’t available to us at scale just yet, we are watching this space with great anticipation. 

3% Organisation Operations 

In our Sydney headquarters, we compost all of our organic waste, including food scraps and compostable packaging. 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

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.

Carbon Labelling and How it Works

Carbon labelling informs consumers about the carbon footprint of a product. Our products' carbon labels will show the total lifecycle footprint of each product and are based on calculations by an independent third party. This information will be included in the product description on our website, which displays the total CO2 emissions. We believe that providing this information will allow consumers to make informed choices, reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to global climate change mitigation efforts. Carbon labelling can also incentivise the rest of the packaging industry to invest in sustainable production methods.

BioPak Secures 2,228 Tonnes of Carbon in Rainforest Rescue’s Carbon Project 

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. 

In 2022, Rainforest Rescue has partnered with Doctor Alexander Cheesman, Senior Research Fellow the University of Exeter & James Cook University to model the carbon stored by Rainforest Rescue’s work protecting existing and growing forests. 

BioPak’s protection of 7.22 hectares of mature tropical forests has helped hold 1,877.4 tonnes of carbon which is stored in the trees over their lifetime. The 8.5 hectares of trees BioPak has helped plant on cleared damaged land has sequestrated 350.5 tonnes of carbon so far – this amount will grow as the trees mature.

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