Implementation & Sustainability of Returnable Packaging in the Global Manufacturing Industry : A case study at Volvo Trucks

Organizations across the world have seen increasing pressure to become more sustainable through their operations from governmental bodies and consumers. The study focused on the role of packaging within global manufacturing companies, as packaging has been seen to play a large role GHG emissions for global manufacturing supply chains and although returnable packaging is widely used in the industry, packaging for large & low volume goods continues to utilize single-use packaging. Volvo GTO IM has designed but not yet implemented a type of returnable packaging for truck cabs, named cab-skids, sent to international assembly plants. The study takes an inductive case-study approach, in which the supply chain factors impacting the implementation of returnable cab-skids were identified, along with a calculation framework for assessing the GHG impact of a potential implementation. A gap in academic knowledge has been identified regarding the GHG effects of primary heavy industrial returnable packaging for both implementation and calculation methods. The calculation framework includes methods for calculating the production emissions of the cab skids (Category 1), the upstream transportation & distribution activities (Category 4), and the downstream transportation & distribution activities (Category 9). The study identified 10 critical supply chain factors to consider when implementing heavy returnable packaging through 7 interviews, categorized into three main themes, applicability, availability, and variability. The calculation framework was based upon the Greenhouse Gas Protocol which provided calculation methods for category 1, category 4, and category 9 GHG emissions. The associated activities were identified through interviews with respective stakeholders. An analysis of the critical supply chain factors indicated direct and in-direct relationships between the major themes and subsequent sub-factors. An analysis of the calculation framework indicated that the emissions of returnable packaging would potentially be higher than the current state of single-use cab skids, as the category 1 & 4 emissions from single-use skids needed to be higher than the added category 9 emissions due to the reverse flow to emit less GHG than single-use packaging. A redistribution of emissions was identified from category 1 & 4 to category 9 in the case of returnable packaging. The study sheds light on the true sustainability of heavy returnable packaging across global industrial supply chains