Sustainability Initiatives at the forefront of EU brands label and packaging requirements.

Sustainability Initiatives at the forefront of EU brands label and packaging requirements.

The packaging industry has seen many shifts over the years, especially as customer’s environmental awareness has increased. Towards the end of 2022 Label Craft joined the Asteria Group and aligned with their sustainability practices at their Dublin factory in Ireland. The Asteria group at large proudly boasts a wide range of sustainable raw materials at its disposal. Moreover, as a group we closely follow all ecological market developments and proactively search for innovative, sustainable materials together.

With more scrutiny over sustainability and regulation, the packaging industry has had to quickly evolve to assuage consumer concerns and ensure that they are operating in an environmentally friendly way.

However, doing so has also caused a lot of confusion for businesses and corporations, as they try to balance their own interests with sustainability and public demand.

In addition, sustainability regulations around packaging have also become increasingly ambitious, adding another challenge for businesses trying to improve on their environmental impacts.

While there are many measures in place to support sustainability initiatives, it still cannot upend the dependence on plastics.

In order for sustainability in packaging to take off, waste collection, recycling systems, and technology would need more improvement to support the changes in materials and disposal methods needed.

2023 has brought the future of packaging into question and has started to push companies to begin incorporating sustainability into their strategies, especially in packaging. The Asteria Group has a strict purchasing policy for all our raw materials. You can opt for materials made from recycled sources (in whole or in part). Whether paper, cardboard, or plastic.

We offer RPE (made from 30% recycled PE), RPP (made from recycled PP waste) and RMC (made from recycled paper waste).

But also, materials manufactured from (wholly or partly) alternative sources, such as sugar cane or grass, can be an option. On a day-to-day basis, we have bio-based PE, made from sugar cane ethanol instead of fossil raw materials, and bio-based PP, made from non-fossil raw materials, such as vegetable oils in stock.

In addition companies are not only looking to work with manufactures on their sustainable choices in materials but also in their operations practices encompassing a larger part of the production process. This is an important part of our operation at Label Craft. As much as possible, the Asteria Group wants to use alternative sources of energy such as solar power. For example, the installation of solar panels at one of our production sites accounts for more than 25% of its energy consumption. In addition, this results in an average CO₂ reduction of 31 tonnes per year for that site. Our Label Craft Dublin factory installed its Solar Power in 2023.