Industry leaders have given a qualified welcome to news that version two of the Courtauld Commitment will move away from a purely weight-based measure of packaging's environmental impact. WRAP head of retail Richard Swannell revealed recently the body was looking at measurements such as recycled content & carbon footprinting for a more balanced measure. He said Wrap was responding to the widely-held view that weight alone was not the best metric for understanding environmental impact, but acknowledged carbon footprinting was also problematic. A new version of the Courtauld Commitment, the voluntary scheme for brand owners and retailers, which is designed to reduce packagings environmental impact, is likely to come into play by 2011, replacing the existing 2005 agreement, which ends 2010 & used packaging weight as the key measurement for reducing packaging waste.
