Assessing environmental sustainability of packaging solutions for telecommunications network products and developing roadmap for more sustainable packaging

Abstract

Together with its customer, Nokia is ambitious to be the leader in the telecommunication industry towards sustainability. Sustainable development of packaging materials are considered in Nokia, therefore, two targets are set in this thesis: first, to know the recycled content rate of the current packaging materials and to try to improve this rate; second, to look for sustainable packaging alternatives and to analyze their feasibilities. From the theoretical research, two trends are found: one trend is the circularity of the conventional packaging materials, another trend is the replacement of the conventional packaging materials. Both trends are in line with the circular economy concept. The research methods are online surveys with current suppliers and potential future suppliers. According to the results, corrugated board has the most stably high recycled content rate, that of PE foam and PE film ranges a lot from different suppliers, EPS and PP foam are 0%, wooden pallets are not recycled but reused. The common sustainable packaging is reusable, recyclable or biodegradable packaging. Biodegradable packaging alternatives are mainly divided into fiber-based materials, biodegradable bioplastics, and other new materials. As result, the roadmap is created with strategies. The short-term strategy focus is on reusable packaging and recyclable packaging, and the long-term strategy focus on biodegradable packaging.