Product stewardship in action published

Product stewardship in action: the business case for lifecycle thinking has just been published by UK publisher Greenleaf.

Written primarily for a business audience, Product stewardship in action draws on the knowledge and experience of industry practitioners and other experts to provide a structured approach to product responsibility within firms.

Chapters on corporate strategy, packaging, e-waste, batteries, strategies and trends in product stewardship are supported by numerous case studies. These include a number of leading stewardship programs across a range of products:
– Resene Paintwise
– PVC Product Stewardship Program
– Foodstuffs packaging design
– REDcycle soft plastics recycling
– Glass Packaging Forum
– Close the Loop cartridge recycling
– Fisher & Paykel appliance recycling
– TechCollect TV and computer recycling
– MobileMuster phone and battery recycling
– Call2Recycle phone and battery recycling
– Battery World battery recycling

Unlike other resources on product stewardship and extended producer responsibility, which tend to focus on the design or evaluation of public policy, this book highlights the business case for action. It argues that companies can achieve ‘shared value’ – both public and commercial value – when they take a proactive and knowledge-based approach to the life cycle management of their products.

Copies of the book can be ordered here

Crittenden, P. and H. Lewis (2012), Influencing financial decisions on energy efficiency: six key strategies to build management support

Crittenden, P. and H. Lewis (2012), Influencing financial decisions on energy efficiency: six key strategies to build management support, Proceedings of the 2012 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Asilomar, California

Design smart material guides

The Australian Packaging Covenant has published a set of resources to assist those involved in the design, specification and procurement of packaging. The Design Smart Material Guides were written by consultants Sustainable Resource Use (SRU) and Helen Lewis Research.

The ten guides provide a ‘checklist’ of sustainability considerations to keep in mind when designing and/or specifying packaging based on particular materials. They cover fibre packaging, rigid plastic packaging, flexible plastic packaging, aluminium containers, steel containers, glass containers, composite packaging formats, degradable plastics packaging and packaging components/closures/labels.

The guides can be downloaded here.