Coopbox’s products made of PP, PET and XPS have also been registered and analysed as part of the EPD programme promoted by Pro Food Italia (Unionplast’s trade association that represents Italian manufacturers of plastic containers for food and beverage packaging). The goal is to assess the environmental impact of packaging and highlight the advantages of using recycled plastic to reduce the carbon footprint of companies.

An EPD, acronym for Environmental Product Declaration, is a document prepared by an independent third body aimed at providing truthful and transparent information about the life cycle of a product or service by using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) calculations as a parameter for assessing sustainability.
The criteria used by the LCA take into account where and how a product or service is sourced and calculate how the products manufactured by a company may affect global warming potential (GWP), acidification (i.e. risk of acid rain), energy consumption, eutrophication (which indicates the uncontrolled growth of harmful algal blooms in aquatic ecosystems), the formation of photochemical oxidants (which are harmful to the ozone layer), abiotic depletion (related to land use), water consumption and waste generation due to production processes. In short, all the harmful effects that a consumer product or service can have on nature.

Pro Food Italia’s EPD, certified by the independent third party SGS, is the first dedicated to the packaging sector and analyses products made of PP, PET and XPS.
It considers the upstream phase, which includes the processes of extraction, recycling and transportation of raw materials, as well as the core phase, which includes the production of the packaging. It then goes on to examine containers derived exclusively from the recycling of post-consumer plastic waste from separate waste collection.

With this EPD, Coopbox promotes scientific analysis of the environmental impact of plastic packaging and is committed to developing green containers aimed at reducing the environmental impact of large-scale retailers and the food industry.