CONAI Prevention Call 2019

Applications accepted up to June 30 for participating in the Prevention Call 2019, via which Conai rewards manufacturing and user companies that rethink their packaging with a view to sustainability. 500,000 euros the total prize money and 9 super prizes of 10,000 euro each.

The "CONAI contest for prevention  and packaging sustainability" is an initiative promoted by the National Packaging Consortium under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of the Environment, which annually rewards the packaging solutions that have effectively reduced their environmental impact, thanks to a responsible and innovative design or re-design.

Hence the 2019 edition of the Call for Applications concerning packaging placed on the market in 2017-2018 gets underway. All consortium companies that participate in rethinking the design with a view to reducing environmental impact can take part in at least one of the following categories: re-use, facilitating recycling activities, saving raw materials, using recycled materials, optimizing logistics, simplifying the packaging system and optimizing production processes.

«In a market where consumers are increasingly aware and attentive to the issue of sustainability, a responsible approach is able to bring economic and competitive advantages to those who adopt it - Giorgio Quagliuolo, President of CONAI reiterates - this year we have decided to increase the economic resources to reward the research and development efforts of producer or user companies».

The 2019 innovations
Compared to the last edition, the Call for Proposals 2019 sees an increase in the prize pool from 400 thousand to 500 thousand euros, of which 410 thousand will be divided "pro-quota" among all the cases presented and recognized as virtuous, proportionally to the score obtained by each of them (determined by the sum of the points totalled for each activated criterion, table 1).

The remaining 90 thousand euros are allocated to 9 super prizes of 10 thousand euros each, to be assigned to the most virtuous solutions of the six chains of packaging materials (steel, aluminium, paper, wood, plastic and glass), and to the winners of the new "Circular Innovation" category - which includes the best cases of activation of the "Facilitation of recycling", "Use of recycled material" and "Reuse" categories (selected by an extended Technical Committee, comprising CONAI, representatives of the sector consortiums, third-party organizations from the design sector, environmental associations and technical journalism).

The applications, to be submitted by 30 June by completing the special form on the website www.ecotoolconai.org, will be analyzed using CONAI's "Eco Tool", which allows for a simplified LCA analysis, calculating the effects of the actions of prevention implemented by companies in terms of energy and water savings and reduction of CO2 emissions.

A reminder also that both existing packaging developments and newly adopted solutions that, based on the results provided by the Eco Tool, have a lower environmental impact compared to the packaging most frequently used on the Italian market for the same application, are admitted to the Call.

This year too the Conai Eco Tool and the analysis of the cases will be subjected to validation by the international certification body DNV GL.

CONAI prevention strategies

Prevention of the environmental impact of packaging is a complex topic, which involves the entire supply chain and its multiple actors throughout the packaging life cycle. Indeed, one need consider not only the production phases and immediate use, but also equally decisive factors such as distribution or post-consumer management, ensuring that rules, performance and functionality are not compromised, above all concerning the protection of the content.  In this perspective, CONAI promotes measures that affect all the links in the supply chain, involving the following aspects:

- eco-design and environmental assessment upstream through scientific instruments to allow the evaluation of the different design choices;

- re-use and related environmentally sustainable applications;

- quality separate waste collection, an essential factor for optimizing recycling streams and creating new ones;

- research and development of new sorting and recycling technologies with the aim of maximizing the recycling yield.

In particular, the actions undertaken by the Consortium are of two types:

- structural: via the positioning of the environmental contribution, that entails both modulation of the fee based on recyclability, sortability, destination circuit, as well as facilitations and exemptions from the Contribution for packaging reuse in specific monitored or controlled circuits;

- awareness-raising and instrumental, to spread the concept of environmental impact prevention among companies and support them in the process of improving the environmental performance of their packaging throughout the entire life cycle of the packaging, starting from the design phase.

Think Future is a great project conceived by CONAI to raise awareness, support and reward companies that operate in a logic of prevention, which is divided into several initiatives:

• the “CONAI contest for prevention and packaging sustainability” which rewards sustainable and innovative packaging solutions placed on the Italian market by companies.

• The online successful case showcase, which collects and highlights cases of virtuous packaging proposed by packaging manufacturers and users.

• The development of the CONAI Eco Tool, a simplified LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) online tool, to evaluate the environmental benefits of the interventions promoted by the companies participating in the CONAI Prevention Call. The result of this analysis is expressed in terms of reducing CO₂ emissions, reducing energy and water consumption. Currently work is being done in order to have the Eco Tool evolve into eco-design tool for companies, useful for rating the various packaging solutions via guided simulations and actions of improvement.

• The E Pack service, managed via the webmail [email protected], is dedicated to companies that want to orient themselves in the eco-efficiency of packaging. A website dedicated to labeling will soon be available, both for companies, that will be able to construct their own labels independently, and for members of the public, to help them read labels and raise awareness of quality RD.

• The web platform “Design recycling - Guidelines for design aimed at recyclability” (www.progettarericiclo.com), for the publication e la consultazione pubblica of guidelines for the design of multi material packaging, with a view to greater recyclability. The platform offers guidelines for the design of plastic and aluminium packaging and work is being done for those on paper packaging.