Introduction Nowadays, the growing of businesses must go hand by hand with the reduction of related environmental impacts. In fact, a decoupling is essential to address the current climate crisis. To this, Companies are assessing the impacts of their production activities to developstrategic plans towards better environmental performances. METLAC Group is a leading Company in the sector of metal packaging coating for food and beverages. It aims at developing innovative formulations that reduce the use of rawmaterials from fossil sources. In 2022, METLAC started a project with University of Eastern Piedmont to support R&D area towards sustainability-driven decisions. Methodology Two Carbon Footprint (CFP) studies were conducted on variants of transparent coatings forcrown caps. The traditional formulation is solvent-based, while the innovative one is a prototype solid, UV-based, and compliant to ESP Regulation by EUPIA. Studies were compliant with ISO 14067 and “PCR-2021-0005 for Paints, Varnishes and Coatings”. Considered system boundaries were both from-cradle-to-gate with a functional unit of 1 kg of varnish. Included process units were subdivided into “upstream processes”, when related to supply-chains, and “core” if performed at METLAC’s. There were excluded the contributions of equipment and buildings’ construction, any by-products, and waste- treatment processes. It was applied a weight-based cut-off for the raw materials constituents and products with a contribution <0.1%. Calculation models were built with openLCA v1.11 and ecoinvent database v3.8 - EN 15804addon. According to ISO, impacts were assessed using the LCIA Methodology “IPCC 2013 GWP 100”. Results and discussion Results of the traditional coating shown highest emissions of fossil GHGs. The majority of total contributions are related to production processes of raw materials. The separate assessment of core processes also shown highest fossil GHGs emissions, followed by biogenic ones. Related major contributions are linked to the production of thermal and electric energy, according to the secondary datasets taken as reference. Impacts of the UV-based coating were lower than the ones of traditional formulation. Theywere directly linked to the efforts made by METLAC towards eco-design. However, they were affected as well by the quality of data from suppliers. Conclusion Generally, LCIA results were useful to identify hotspots related to the formulation of the innovative UV-based varnish, helping METLAC in the product-design phase. Results of core processes could be positively affected by improving the quality of primary data (e.g., using meters). Moreover, METLAC is strengthening the quality of data from suppliers by providingthem with a structured procedure.
Carbon footprint of solvent-based and innovative UV-based coatings
Gransinigh Sara;Cantino Giorgio
;
2024-01-01
Abstract
Introduction Nowadays, the growing of businesses must go hand by hand with the reduction of related environmental impacts. In fact, a decoupling is essential to address the current climate crisis. To this, Companies are assessing the impacts of their production activities to developstrategic plans towards better environmental performances. METLAC Group is a leading Company in the sector of metal packaging coating for food and beverages. It aims at developing innovative formulations that reduce the use of rawmaterials from fossil sources. In 2022, METLAC started a project with University of Eastern Piedmont to support R&D area towards sustainability-driven decisions. Methodology Two Carbon Footprint (CFP) studies were conducted on variants of transparent coatings forcrown caps. The traditional formulation is solvent-based, while the innovative one is a prototype solid, UV-based, and compliant to ESP Regulation by EUPIA. Studies were compliant with ISO 14067 and “PCR-2021-0005 for Paints, Varnishes and Coatings”. Considered system boundaries were both from-cradle-to-gate with a functional unit of 1 kg of varnish. Included process units were subdivided into “upstream processes”, when related to supply-chains, and “core” if performed at METLAC’s. There were excluded the contributions of equipment and buildings’ construction, any by-products, and waste- treatment processes. It was applied a weight-based cut-off for the raw materials constituents and products with a contribution <0.1%. Calculation models were built with openLCA v1.11 and ecoinvent database v3.8 - EN 15804addon. According to ISO, impacts were assessed using the LCIA Methodology “IPCC 2013 GWP 100”. Results and discussion Results of the traditional coating shown highest emissions of fossil GHGs. The majority of total contributions are related to production processes of raw materials. The separate assessment of core processes also shown highest fossil GHGs emissions, followed by biogenic ones. Related major contributions are linked to the production of thermal and electric energy, according to the secondary datasets taken as reference. Impacts of the UV-based coating were lower than the ones of traditional formulation. Theywere directly linked to the efforts made by METLAC towards eco-design. However, they were affected as well by the quality of data from suppliers. Conclusion Generally, LCIA results were useful to identify hotspots related to the formulation of the innovative UV-based varnish, helping METLAC in the product-design phase. Results of core processes could be positively affected by improving the quality of primary data (e.g., using meters). Moreover, METLAC is strengthening the quality of data from suppliers by providingthem with a structured procedure.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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