Minimising carbon emissions in packaging

Why scope 3 emissions matter in brand packaging?

Big brand owners are becoming extremely “carbon-critical” – and, they are currently turning their attention to the materials used in brand packaging. Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions play a make-or-break role in companies’ emissions target setting – and studies have shown that the reductions in this area can be truly remarkable.

Recently, Metsä Board has performed verified assessments to discover how companies’ paperboards compare – carbon footprint-wise with conventional board grades used in three end use areas – healthcare, beautycare and food packaging.

Optimising the paperboard used in a painkiller and a teabag packaging can cut the carbon footprint by as much as 60 per cent, based on the life cycle assessment. With a fragrance packaging, the achieved reduction potential was more than 50 per cent. Each of these assessments was conducted by Metsä Board and run separately during the past year.

For this undertaking, Metsä Board enlisted the aid of the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute to serve as an objective third party in verifying the results. The technical background reports and the verification statements are available on Metsä Board’s website.

Can switching to folding boxboard reduce Scope 3 emissions?

Anne Uusitalo, Product Safety and Sustainability Director at Metsä Board, notes that optimising a customer’s packaging material with fresh fibre paperboards offers them “a tangible way forward” to achieve their sustainability goals. And material optimisation does not compromise performance or quality. 

“For various companies, the focus now turns to Scope 3, where even dramatic improvements can be made – as our studies clearly show,” says Uusitalo.

In a teabag packaging, for example, switching from white-lined chipboard (WLC) to Metsä Board’s folding boxboard can reduce the carbon footprint by more than 60 per cent compared with corresponding grades available in European markets.

Key drivers of carbon footprint in paperboard packaging

Sustainability Manager Lari Oksala is responsible for the carbon footprint assessments and the actual calculations and comparisons. He points out that two major factors affect the carbon footprint in estimating paperboard packaging’s climate impact.

“Whether fossil or non-fossil-based energy is used is one key issue. The other is the weight of the packaging material,” he explains.

According to Oksala, Metsä Board’s fresh fibre paperboard production uses predominantly fossil-free energy. In 2024, 89 per cent of Metsä Board’s total energy consumption was fossil-free.

“Manufacturing of recycled fibre-based paperboards often relies on fossil fuels. Generally speaking, more fossil-free electricity is available in the Nordics than elsewhere in Europe.”

For lightweighting, there are many environmental benefits.

“First of all, using less material to produce the required type of packaging reduces the overall carbon footprint. There’s also less weight to be transported throughout the supply chain. And finally, there’s less waste after the product use,” says Oksala.

In these studies, Metsä Board’s folding boxboards’ lower carbon footprint is therefore due to both the use of fossil-free energy in their production and their lighter weight. However, despite the lighter weight, Metsä Board’s folding boxboards retain the stiffness and functional properties of traditional heavier grades.

Next steps

By 2030, Metsä Board wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from logistics procured by the company by 30 per cent per tonne kilometre, compared with the 2022 level (Scope 3, Category 4).

Furthermore, Metsä Board has decided to exclude purchased pulp and other woody raw materials from the monitoring of the progress towards its target of fossil-free raw materials and packaging materials. The pro gress of other fossil-free raw materials can thus be monitored more easily.

Helping brand-owners make informed, low-carbon decisions

Anne Uusitalo knows that Metsä Board’s customers are very responsive to news about more sustainable packaging materials – and it is the responsibility of forward-looking packaging industry players such as Metsä Board to educate the customers about the options in the field.

“We want to provide brand owners with transparent, unbiased information that helps them evaluate packaging materials. They can thus make better-informed, sustainable choices to reduce their carbon footprint,” Uusitalo says.

The results of the three studies seem extraordinary: today, even single-digit corporate carbon reductions are often widely celebrated – let alone halving a packaging solution’s carbon footprint. Nevertheless, Oksala and Uusitalo say they were unsurprised by the findings.

“We expected these results in each of the three cases, as we had done similar assessments before,” says Oksala.

“However, this time around we wanted to get a third-party perspective on the matter. This is important in communicating the findings to the customers,” he adds.  

Importance of 3rd party verifications in packaging's carbon footprint assessments

According to Uusitalo, many industry players are now producing carbon footprint assessments rooted in different principles, which is causing confusion among customers.

“That’s why fact-based, third-party verification is so crucial,” she says, adding that it’s good that the regulatory pressure is also steering the industry towards a more unified verification process.

“The EU Green Claims Directive, currently in preparation, will certainly play a role here,” Uusitalo says.

The reference board grades’ carbon footprint information used in the studies was derived from a widely adapted commercial database to achieve a level playing field.

“The studies show that in the selected applications the choice of paperboard can make a notable difference from the climate impact perspective,” she says.

Originally published in Board Magazine Summer 2025.