‘UNITED CAPS, a manufacturer of caps and closures, has unveiled a new initiative Define Your Circle’. It is designed to provide a simpler way to calculate full life-cycle environmental impact of products, from before the materials enter the plant right through to its performance in the hands of the end user, offering a means of contributing to circular economy development.

UNITED CAPS are seeing a growing interest in the use of sustainability certified bio-based and recycled resins as part of an approach to product composition while both customers and consumers have been seeking to better understand the weight of decisions they make in the realm of sustainability.

One way to measure environmental effect beyond just making assumptions about impact, which is probably the most frequent approach, is through a process called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that assesses the environmental impact of food packaging, including material used, end of life, as well as other environmental impacts.

‘Define Your Circle’ offers manufacturers a data-based decision-making process to sustainability of product packaging.

Especially for smaller to mid-sized companies, this can be a challenging, complex and expensive process that requires specialists to complete. In addition, there are many misconceptions about the lifecycle environmental impact of various types of plastics, including those manufactured from fossil-fuel feed stocks and those manufactured from bio-based feed stocks.

Instead of depending on the complexities of a full LCA assessment, UNITED CAPS has chosen to leverage one of the industry’s largest life cycle assessment databases, GaBi, which is constantly updated as new technology and new insights come to the fore.

The UNITED CAPS ‘Define Your Circle’ tool gives customers access to this extensive database, delivering insight and guidance that leads to better sustainability decision making.

As part of this holistic approach, ‘Define Your Circle’ allows customers to analyse the environmental footprint of caps, closures, and the containers they are used with, making better decisions about many aspects of product manufacture and distribution.

“UNITED CAPS have adopted an approach that places an emphasis on data-driven transparency to aid decision making,” said Benoit Henckes, CEO at UNITED CAPS. “By comparing our KINDCAP closure using the GaBi indicator with a standard 99 PE snap cap from Competitor X, we can see that KINDCAP is more than 20% more environmentally friendly in pretty much all aspects.”

Benoit Henckes added that, “If we further compare a typical PE snap cap made in the normal way versus a KINDCAP made with 50% bio-based resin, we can now have much greater understanding of the trade-offs involved in that decision.” This approach that has been taken by UNITED CAPS and it enables fact-based decision making quickly and easily.

The end-user solution adopted was to work with ISCC Plus Certified bio-based and recycled resins. Suitable for food applications, this certification allows brands to communicate the partial use of certified resin (less than 100%).

Thus, for example, a closure may have been produced with ISCC Certified Resin but the bottle was not.  In this example, the closure certification can be displayed on the packaging, aiding the consumer in making an informed choice.

‘UNITED CAPS, a manufacturer of caps and closures, has unveiled a new initiative Define Your Circle’. It is designed to provide a simpler way to calculate full life-cycle environmental impact of products, from before the materials enter the plant right through to its performance in the hands of the end user, offering a means of contributing to circular economy development.

UNITED CAPS are seeing a growing interest in the use of sustainability certified bio-based and recycled resins as part of an approach to product composition while both customers and consumers have been seeking to better understand the weight of decisions they make in the realm of sustainability.

One way to measure environmental effect beyond just making assumptions about impact, which is probably the most frequent approach, is through a process called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that assesses the environmental impact of food packaging, including material used, end of life, as well as other environmental impacts.

‘Define Your Circle’ offers manufacturers a data-based decision-making process to sustainability of product packaging.

Especially for smaller to mid-sized companies, this can be a challenging, complex and expensive process that requires specialists to complete. In addition, there are many misconceptions about the lifecycle environmental impact of various types of plastics, including those manufactured from fossil-fuel feed stocks and those manufactured from bio-based feed stocks.

Instead of depending on the complexities of a full LCA assessment, UNITED CAPS has chosen to leverage one of the industry’s largest life cycle assessment databases, GaBi, which is constantly updated as new technology and new insights come to the fore.

The UNITED CAPS ‘Define Your Circle’ tool gives customers access to this extensive database, delivering insight and guidance that leads to better sustainability decision making.

As part of this holistic approach, ‘Define Your Circle’ allows customers to analyse the environmental footprint of caps, closures, and the containers they are used with, making better decisions about many aspects of product manufacture and distribution.

“UNITED CAPS have adopted an approach that places an emphasis on data-driven transparency to aid decision making,” said Benoit Henckes, CEO at UNITED CAPS. “By comparing our KINDCAP closure using the GaBi indicator with a standard 99 PE snap cap from Competitor X, we can see that KINDCAP is more than 20% more environmentally friendly in pretty much all aspects.”

Benoit Henckes added that, “If we further compare a typical PE snap cap made in the normal way versus a KINDCAP made with 50% bio-based resin, we can now have much greater understanding of the trade-offs involved in that decision.” This approach that has been taken by UNITED CAPS and it enables fact-based decision making quickly and easily.

The end-user solution adopted was to work with ISCC Plus Certified bio-based and recycled resins. Suitable for food applications, this certification allows brands to communicate the partial use of certified resin (less than 100%).

Thus, for example, a closure may have been produced with ISCC Certified Resin but the bottle was not.  In this example, the closure certification can be displayed on the packaging, aiding the consumer in making an informed choice.