18 November 2024

Last Oct. 14, 2024 at the festival of L’Economia del Corriere della Sera, the 11th edition of the CONAI Call for Ecodesign of Packaging in the Circular Economy closed with extraordinary results: 248 award-winning projects submitted by 118 companies. A record edition, with 414 applications: +11% compared to 2023.

A growing commitment to sustainability

According to Simona Fontana, managing director of CONAI, the participation shows how the Italian entrepreneurial community is embracing increasingly sustainable production models. “Rethinking packaging by reducing its environmental impact is crucial not only for companies, but for the entire supply chain,” she said.

The environmental benefits of the award-winning solutions speak for themselves: compared to traditional packaging, ecodesign projects have reduced:

CO₂: -27%
Energy consumption: -20%
Water consumption: -18%.

Triflex T-Lid awarded for raw material savings

The winning companies distinguished themselves by using a variety of sustainable strategies that led to a real integration of process efficiency and environmental sustainability, including:

Use of recycled material
Savings in raw material due to lighter packaging solutions
Reduction in virgin material, a new feature introduced this year to promote the use of secondary resources.

Among the winning case studies was also the one submitted by ITP, Triflex T-Lid, which stood out for saving raw material and virgin raw material.

This tray top film, in fact, is produced through advanced blown coextrusion technology, so there is no need to laminate multiple layers. This results in a film that is more than 30% thinner than laminated films with the same characteristics, without the use of glues.

Commonly used to seal plastic trays, it prevents food spoilage due to its oxygen barrier. Its great transparency improves pack presentation on the shelf. It is ideal for ready meals, fresh pasta, meat, poultry, fish and seafood. Very thin, it reduces pack weight, optimizing carbon footprint and logistics costs.

The importance of LCA studies

The analysis of the projects were conducted by the CONAI Eco Tool, a simplified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool that measures the impact of ecodesign solutions on energy, water, CO₂ emissions and recycling. The system has been validated by the international certification institute DNV, ensuring transparency and reliability.

It is precisely on the LCA studies that ITP has been investing in recent years, to derive transparent and certified indications regarding the environmental impact of flexible plastic packaging, against the fake news regarding the sustainability of this category of packaging, which is often and willingly demonized in favor of other materials that in fact are much less sustainable.