A number your auditor can actually check.
Most packaging carbon figures are a single impressive total with no workings. Ours come with every coefficient, every exclusion and the spreadsheet on request — which makes them smaller and far more useful.
Request the model
We will send the underlying spreadsheet, including the freight allocation.
Start from mass, not from units
Packaging carbon is dominated by the mass of board you consume, so the chain is always: units → blank area → board weight → kilograms → kilograms of CO₂e. A 48 × 40 × 36 triple-wall gaylord is cut from about 13,500 square inches of board at 0.55 lb per square foot, which is 51.7 lb of board for the blank and roughly 18.5 lb in the finished container after trim and slotting.
Multiply the board mass by the appropriate factor — 1.30 kg CO₂e per kg for virgin corrugated, cradle-to-gate — and you have the embodied figure. Everything else is an adjustment to that.
What a reuse cycle costs
Collection freight allocated across a full trailer, grading labour, repair board, re-facing and outbound freight. Our measured figure is 1.4 to 2.1 kg CO₂e per container cycle and we publish 1.8. Expressed per kilogram of board that is 0.215, against 1.30 for virgin — roughly a sixth.
The three credits we leave out
- End-of-life recycling credit. Defensible, contested, and it would improve every figure here.
- Carbon stored in the fibre. Real, but the accounting treatment is disputed and timescale-dependent.
- Avoided landfill methane. Significant in some jurisdictions and close to zero in others.
Including all three would roughly halve our stated impact. We leave them out and still arrive at a strong number, which is the point: a figure that survives scrutiny is worth more to you than one that impresses.
The fibre-length multiplier
Corrugated can be recycled five to seven times before the fibre is too short to form strong board. Every reuse cycle postpones one of those events, so a box reused nine times and then recycled five times delivers forty-five useful lives against five for a box pulped immediately.
No standard carbon methodology captures this, because it is a service-life argument rather than an emissions one. We mention it because it is the single strongest point in favour of reuse and it is almost never made.
Where packaging shows up in your inventory.
Almost all of it is Scope 3, which is both the hardest category to influence and the one where reuse makes the largest single difference.
| Scope | Definition | Your packaging | Where we affect it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope 1 | Direct emissions from sources you own or control | Your own forklifts and trucks moving packaging | Our nine trailers and yard equipment |
| Scope 2 | Indirect emissions from purchased energy | Electricity for balers, compactors, lighting | Our press, baler and grading floor lighting |
| Scope 3, cat. 1 | Purchased goods and services | The embodied carbon of every box you buy | Where reuse makes the largest difference to you |
| Scope 3, cat. 4 | Upstream transportation | Freight bringing packaging to you | Reduced by knocked-down cube and reverse loads |
| Scope 3, cat. 5 | Waste generated in operations | What your dock sends to landfill or recycling | Our diversion statements report directly into this |
| Scope 3, cat. 12 | End-of-life of sold products | Where your packaging ends up after the customer | Reuse postpones this entirely |
Every number we multiply by, in one table.
Take these, argue with them, substitute your own. Two have changed because a customer arrived with better data, which is the entire point of publishing them.
| Factor | Value we use | Range in literature | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virgin corrugated, cradle-to-gate | 1.30 kg CO₂e / kg | 1.1 – 1.6 | Mid estimate; includes inbound freight |
| Recycled-content corrugated | 0.85 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.6 – 1.1 | Varies hugely with mill energy mix |
| Reuse cycle (collect, grade, repair, issue) | 0.215 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.17 – 0.25 | Our own measurement, trailer-allocated |
| Repair-and-reuse cycle | 0.275 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.22 – 0.33 | Adds bench labour and repair board |
| Conversion to honeycomb or dunnage | 0.49 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.4 – 0.6 | Destroys the container, keeps the sheet |
| Recycling to new board | 0.76 kg CO₂e / kg | 0.6 – 0.95 | Consumes one of the fibre's five to seven lives |
| Triple-wall gaylord board weight | 18.5 lb | 17 – 20 | 48 × 40 × 36, no lid |
| Median trips per gaylord | 9 | 4 – 14 observed | Marked-container study, n = 4,200 |
| Trailer packing efficiency | 72% | 65 – 80 | Knocked down and banded |
| Landfill density, loose OCC | 80 lb / yd³ | 50 – 110 | Used for volume-avoided figures |
We deliberately exclude end-of-life recycling credit, carbon stored in the fibre and avoided landfill methane. All three would improve our figures and all three are contested.
Eight claims, and how strong each one actually is.
Two of these we make and document. One we refuse to make. One we consider close to meaningless.
| Claim | Evidence needed | Strength | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recycled content, post-consumer | Mill certificate of analysis | Strong | Percentage varies by mill and by run |
| FSC Recycled | Chain-of-custody certificate | Strong | Requires certified converters at every step |
| SFI Certified Sourcing | Chain-of-custody documentation | Strong | Covers sourcing practice, not recycled content |
| Recyclable | Material composition | Moderate | Depends on local infrastructure; wax and laminate break it |
| Repulpable | Supplier test data | Moderate | Verify with your actual recycler, not the datasheet |
| Reusable | Trips-per-container data | Strong if measured | Meaningless without a trip count behind it |
| Carbon neutral | Offset purchase | Weak | We do not make this claim and are sceptical of those who do |
| 100% diversion | Usually none | Very weak | Ask what they do with wax-coated produce board |
Using our numbers.
Can I put these figures in our annual report?
Yes, with attribution and with the coefficients stated. We would rather you published the method alongside the number — an unsourced figure in a report is a liability for you, not for us.
Which Scope 3 category does packaging fall into?
Mostly category 1, purchased goods and services, for the embodied carbon of what you buy. Category 4 for inbound freight, category 5 for what your own operations throw away, and category 12 for end-of-life where you are the one selling packaged goods.
Do you provide primary data or estimates?
Both, labelled. Our reuse-cycle figure, container weights and trips-per-container are primary data from our own operation. The virgin-board factor is a literature mid estimate, and we show the range.
Will you sign a supplier data request?
Yes, and we will complete CDP-style supplier questionnaires. We will not sign anything asserting carbon neutrality, because we are not carbon neutral and do not buy offsets to claim otherwise.
What if our own consultant disagrees with a coefficient?
Send their number and their source. Two of our published coefficients have changed exactly this way. If their figure is better we will adopt it and credit the change in the next revision.
How do you allocate freight emissions?
Across a full trailer at 72 per cent realistic packing efficiency, which is the figure we actually achieve rather than the theoretical maximum. On reverse loads we allocate half, because the trailer was returning regardless.