PIQET informs sustainable packaging design

Victorian innovation is providing designers around the world with a tool to inform their decisions on packaging.

PIQET, the Packaging Impact Quick Evaluation Tool was developed over the past two years through a partnership between RMIT University’s Centre for Design and Australia’s Sustainable Packaging Alliance (SPA).

PIQET attracted keen international interest when presented by Centre for Design Director, Dr Ralph Horne at London’s PIRA International Sustainability Conference in London in November 2007.

PIQET Graph

Dr Horne explains why PIQET is attracting such keen interest from multi-national companies and packaging designers:

Consumer packaging has been under scrutiny since the 1980s, as a potent symbol of single-use conspicuous consumption culture. Around 70% of packaging is for food and beverages, thus ensuring its ubiquity in our daily lives. Nevertheless, packaging is necessary, and its functions include protection, containment, distribution, convenience and information. Efforts internationally have therefore focussed on encouraging packaging design eficiency and closed loop recycling of packaging materials. Various voluntary and mandatory regulations have driven such change and, in Australia, a national co-regulatory approach is used in the form of the National Packaging Covenant (NPC). An Environmental Code of Practice for Packaging (ECoPP) and associated detailed guidelines accompany the NPC.

While there are good examples of ‘lightweighting’ and minimisation of packaging excess, packaging sustainability remains a contested and complex concept. While we can reject the use of trays and wraps for bananas, which after all come with sufficient ‘natural’ packaging; what about the shift towards single serve sizes, which increases the packaging-product ratio, yet may also reduce food wastage given that more of us are choosing to consume alone? Moreover, is packaging material from ‘natural’ sources such as cardboard, or the new biodegradable polymers, necessarily more sustainable than plastics made from fossil fuels? Is an aluminium can lower or higher impact than a glass bottle? There is no single answer, but there is much better information available to designers on the life cycle impacts of different packaging materials and formats than there was five years ago.

As a response to the gap in sustainability information at packaging designers’ fingertips, RMIT has partnered with a new organisation in Australia (Sustainable Packaging Alliance, SPA) and developed PIQET (Packaging Impact Quick Evaluation Tool). PIQET has been under development since 2005 and is now available to subscribers wishing to undertake quick comparisons of different packaging materials, systems and options during both the concept and detailed design stages. Trials to date with five major brand owners (Cadbury Schweppes, Masterfoods, Lion Nathan, Simplot and Nestle) indicate that data input for a new packaging system takes typically 15-30 minutes depending on complexity. Users can then re-run evaluations by making changes to the packaging specification input data, ranging from one-click on materials menus, to side by side comparison with an unlimited number of alternative configurations, materials and systems. Analysis is full life-cycle, including raw material extraction, packaging manufacture, filling and product/packaging distribution through to packaging disposal, re-use and material reclamation.

PIQET reports against a range of environmental indicators including depletion of non-renewable resources, generation of greenhouse gases, energy use, landfill and litter, and, of course, provides data to enable compliance against a range of NPC Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the Environmental Code of Practice for Packaging (ECoPP). The result is an auto-generated set of diagrams and tables suitable for the designer to reference and submitting to 3rd parties. Since results are provided separately for different environmental impacts, decision makers can choose which factors to prioritise – for example, whether carbon emissions, recyclability or embodied water are the key factor in that situation. Increasingly, processes and products are being required to minimise life cycle greenhouse gas emissions and packaging is no different, hence PIQET allows quick and comprehensive calculation of total greenhouse gas emissions with minimal time and data requirement from the designer.

Related Links

RMIT University’s Centre for Design — www.cfd.rmit.edu.au
Sustainable Packaging Alliance — www.sustainablepack.org

17 December 2007


Page Rating

Your rating:

More Hot Topics

View all
Five Years On Launch
With over 100 attendees from the Victorian design and business community, Design Victoria launched the research publication entitled Five Years On. Victoria’s Design Sector 2003-2008 on 5 December 2008 in Melbourne.
New Retail Report
Although Melbourne is well-known as a shopping destination with its winding laneways and charming arcades, speakers at Design Victoria’s recent seminar shared fresh insight into some of the innovative retail experiences on offer in Melbourne and overseas.
Growth By Design
To tap into the mindset of the top 100 Fast Growth Start Up companies, download Professor Kosmas Smyrnios’ research paper “2008 Fast Starters: Adoption of and barriers to the Application of Design”.
Sense Of Place
Woodhead Architects presents 21st century design trends that define the airport ‘place’ to an integral social and commercial urban hub.
AGIdeas
AGIdeas ‘Advantage’ Business Breakfast presented case studies and guest speakers that articulated the tangible benefits good design can offer to business, building links between design and business communities.
agIdeas 2009
Now in its 19th year, agIdeas is a major event on the design calendar, attracting a sell-out audience from the design and business community and the general public from across Australia and beyond.
Design Driven
A threefold multidisciplinary model of design - inventor/entrepreneur, professor, and practitioner, Tom Barker is an exemplar of practice what you preach.
Creating Sustainable Business
Businesses that include measures to meet ecological concerns in their planning are finding that they not only sleep better for it, but that clients have more reasons to choose their offerings.
Design Anthropology
What can design anthropology add to your design practice?
Creating Master Minds
From the multi-layered artworld of Fluxus to the strata of design research, Professor Ken Friedman’s contribution to the knowledge economy is globally renowned.
Beware Free Riders
As a graphic designer, you expect to be paid for the work you do for clients and agencies. Payment disputes often arise when copyright and written contracts are afterthoughts to a design project. It pays to understand and protect your rights by acting early.
Design Thinking
Design-led thinking can transform the way businesses develop products and services. Tim Brown explains how increasingly more companies are embracing design for competitive advantage
Guerilla Warfare
As the senior visual designer and concept artist at Amsterdam-based game development studio Guerrilla Games, Roland Ijzermans maps parallel universes and charts visually arresting cinematic backdrops.
The Real McCoy vs. Copy Cat Acts
Take your pre-existing ideas about intellectual property protection out of the too hard basket. You can protect your designs if you know what you’re doing – and you do it right first time around.
Springboard
Seventeen Australian designers across numerous design fields have been selected for Stage Two of the Springboard: Entrepreneurship for Designers program.
Find your way to 'To Three'
What do you get when you put an environmental graphic designer together with a feast of rich, international case studies?
How Ab Sees Design
Whether through nature or nurture, design is certainly elemental in Ab Rogers’ stock in trade.
Eco-Design for Designers
Eco-design is not a future phenomenon - it is here now. The eco-design seminars and workshop series imparts strategies for the effective integration of environmental considerations into design and manufacturing. Register now!
The Business of Eco-Design
Sustainability is the key driving force transforming the global design and manufacturing landscape. The eco-design series addresses the fundamental issues of what sustainable design encompasses and identifies the driving forces behind this major market shift. Register now!
Dressed for Success
You’ve registered a trade mark so you’re covered if a competitor copies your creative ideas and designs, right? Not necessarily. Have you thought about registering your designs? And what about patent protection and copyright?
Ahead of the Games
In the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games all eyes are focused on Beijing, and the visual identities devised and designed by Professor Min Wang, and his team.
2008 Premier's Design Awards Virtual Pavillion
Set up in the ‘virtual’ space on your computer, the amazing ‘Virtual Pavilion’ will guide you through the award winning entries of the prestigious Premier’s Design Marks as part of the State of Design Festival 2008.
The Changing Face of Retail
Within an architectural and design context, the Melbourne Retail Strategy seeks to establish partnerships to explore opportunities to create retail-driven landmarks within the city.
Trevor Choy — IP Case Study
It isn't easy to hang on to copyright ownership - clients will often insist that it is given immediately to them for free. In the last 14 years that Trevor Choy has been involved with the design community, he has worked with designers on a few strategies that can sometimes help a designer retain copyright.
SeyMour Ideas
Behind the expansive, original thinking and creative ingenuity of Richard Seymour is a profound design common sensibility.
Culture Klatsch
Still fuelled by the feather-ruffling politics, creativity and collaborative adrenaline of its core members, multidisciplinary pioneers Chicks on Speed, take their self-proclaimed ‘project’ to new highs.
Growth by Design
Find out the seven key design applications featured in BRW 2008 Fast Starters Flagship Edition from interviewing the 100 fastest growing start-up companies.
Ideas to Inc.
The award-winning business Cato Purnell Partners has experienced extraordinary success with offices in four continents around the world. Regardless of culture or context, it seems that design distinction speaks a universal language.
Law and Design: Do you use protection?
Trevor Choy, a Leading Lawyer for Australian Intellectual Property, presents us with a current example of some of the challenges faced in protecting corporate identities.
Championing Design — Sir George Cox
When Britain’s Treasury commissioned Sir George Cox to lead an examination into creativity in business, it did not anticipate the findings the crusading knight would ultimately table.
Designing for a Sustainable Future
Designers can make a significant contribution to the challenge of climate change, says Professor Chris Ryan of the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL).
Design is on the money
While few have the luxury of taking money for granted, how many of us think about the design that goes into the banknotes you hand over at each purchase?
Innovation leader backs design
Why design? George Pappas, Chairman of the Committee for Melbourne, has joined the growing number of Victorian leaders recognising the essential role of design in a company’s ability to innovate and respond to change.
Springboard — Entrepreneurship for Australian designers
Springboard is a mentoring program that will enable Australia’s most promising furniture, accessories and homewares designers to develop their professional careers in local and international markets.
State of Design 2008
The State of Design Festival is Victoria’s peak design event. The Festival will cover many cross-disciplinary design agendas relating to the profession of design and the marketplace that it provides to.
Premier's Design Awards 2008
The Premier’s Design Awards recognises excellence in the realm of design practice in Victoria and communicates the value of good design to a broad public and business audience both locally and internationally.
Shanghai Design Biennale — September 2008
The Victorian Government is seeking expressions of interest from Victorian design firms to take part in an Industry Capability Mission to the Shanghai Design Biennale in September 2008.
Design Gets Down to Business
AGIdeas ‘Advantage’ Business Breakfast presented case studies and guest speakers that articulated the tangible benefits good design can offer to business, building links between design and business communities.
Jeremy Moon — AGIdeas Review
At just 25 years of age, Jeremy Moon founded the company that has become New Zealand’s leading outdoor clothing producer and exporter.
Richard Seymour — AGIdeas Review
Richard Seymour is one of Europe’s best-known product designers. Founding their award-winning design consultancy in 1984, Seymour and partner Dick Powell have built Seymour Powell into one of the most powerful ‘change engines’ in the design business.
Professor Min Wang — AGIdeas Review
Professor Min Wang is Dean of the School of Design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), one of China’s most prestigious art schools and is Design Director for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Committee.
Calling all writers...
Design Victoria is seeking to establish a pool of writers that will work on a casual basis to write content for our website and other media - for more details and to apply please read on.
Energise Enterprise 2008
Victoria’s Small Business Festival comprises an extensive program of events throughout metropolitan and regional Victoria aimed at providing inspiration, ideas and information on how to start or grow a business.
New Retail Report
Although Melbourne is well-known as a shopping destination with its winding laneways and charming arcades, speakers at Design Victoria’s recent seminar shared fresh insight into some of the innovative retail experiences on offer in Melbourne and overseas.
Fast Starters — Fostering Design & Innovation
To tap into the mindset of the top 100 Fast Growth Start Up companies, download Professor Kosmas Smyrnios’ research paper “2008 Fast Starters: Adoption of and barriers to the Application of Design”.
Sustainable by Design
Sustainable by Design focuses on improving sustainability performance through design-led innovation for small to medium enterprises to improve overall environmental management in the creation and redesign of new products and services to increase market competitiveness.
Make Your Mark
An essential guide to Intellectual Property for Australia’s industrial designers. The guide contains practical information and case studies to assist you in making informed IP business decisions.
Protect Your Creative
An essential guide to Intellectual Property for Australia’s Graphic Designers. The guide aims to equip graphic designers with the necessary information to protect and profit from their IP.
© 2007 State Government of Victoria
State of Design | Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Copyright & Trademark Notice
A Victorian Government Initiative - Victoria - The Place To BeIn partnership with RMIT University