When thinking about sustainable packaging, one of the worst areas is temperature-assurance packaging. It’s not the fault of the major players in the “cold chain” arena, but is just the by-product of a paradigm based around bulky insulation and heavy phase-change materials. Cold chain packaging, generally used to ship temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals or biopharmaceuticals, often consists of EPS or PUR containers with gel packs (basically water-filled PE bags). They are insanely heavy when you compare product weight to packaging weight, and it is not uncommon to see 20 lb containers holding a dozen or less vials or syringes. Also, shipments to customers are predominantly one-way and packaging is not reused. This is mostly due to complicated logistics, poor customer participation, and cleanliness issues.

With all this said, it was refreshing to see the megatrend of sustainability begin to influence the cold chain industry. Walmart, as it usually does, leveraged its size to push sustainability into pharmacy shipments. A recent article from Packaging Digest (link) explains how they did it. With impressive cost savings and customer satisfaction, Walmart focused on difficult shipments to Hawaii and Alaska where temperature-sensitive drugs often go to die. A partnership with Entropy Solutions and their innovative GreenBox has enabled Walmart to master these extreme shipping routes and remain true to their sustainability theme.

Walmart has implemented a form of reusability that has been tried before and discussed for years; attaching a return shipping label to try to simplify and increase their customers’ participation. There are potential issues that often stall programs like this, including ensuring that the gel packs are not included in the return shipment (too expensive to ship a cheap commodity), and how to sanitize the containers to be safe for reuse. For Walmart, the cost for return shipments can be especially high considering they are coming back from Hawaii or Alaska. By returning the containers directly to GreenBox, and using hard-sided plastic refrigerants that are less prone to leaking, Walmart has addressed these issues and laid a framework that can be considered a model for others.