Forschung Projektdatenbank Filling and packaging processes Evaluation Method for Sustainability

Evaluation Method for Sustainability

Projectname:
Evaluation method for the sustainability of a processing machine during use phase

Workgroup: Filling and packaging processes

Forschungsstelle und wissenschaftliche Betreuung:

  1. Fraunhofer-Institut für Verfahrenstechnik und Verpackung IVV Dresden, Dr. Enrico Fuchs

Financing: IVLV e. V.
Duration: 2024

A key challenge to achieve climate protection goals such as greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045 is for Germany as an industrial site the transformation towards a sustainable economy by the reduction of resource consumption and environmental pollution. Therefore, a sustainable production by reduction of resources is becoming increasingly important for companies in the processing industry. Since 2017 the obligation to submit a sustainability report is being extended starting from large companies, so that numerous SMEs are also going to be obligated to prepare such reports from 2026 onwards. The report includes indicators to evaluate the sustainability of investments and the ongoing production. Currently various methods with over 500 indicators exist for evaluating the sustainability. This results in a great effort to prepare such reports, especially for SMEs with little experience in the evaluation process. Sustainability evaluations are also often based on data from databases. Plant- and machine-specific information is often missing and thus can deviate from the actual process data. Consequently, no standardized and transferable method exists for evaluating the sustainability of various processes in the food and packaging industry.

The objective of the project is the development of a method to be used by companies in the food and packaging industry for the comprehensive, valid evaluation of the production processes sustainability of processing machines during their use phase, including side processes such as cleaning. The method is validated by a case study in production. Key aspects are:

  1. Development of a method ensuring practical applicability
  2. Research and selection of suitable sustainability indicators (e.g. CO2 footprint, water footprint)
  3. Identification of databases
    • Research of publicly accessible databases
    • Methods for measuring at machines, procurement of measurement technology and testing of the method
  4. Definition of the calculation method of machine/plant-specific sustainability indicators
  5. Selection of a suitable case study for the method validation

The development of a comprehensible method supports companies in the processing and packaging industry to evaluate sustainability indicators and to realize individual solutions for ecologically optimizing their processes. In addition, SMEs can expect further benefits from a comprehensible evaluation of the sustainability in production:

  1. Transparent communication in public relations by valid sustainability reports
  2. Legal certainty by the submission of comprehensible sustainability reports
  3. Differentiation from competitors by sustainability indicators
  4. Additional sales by proof of sustainable products
  5. Application in machine/plant acceptance tests