Supporting Green Supply Chain Strategy of Bottled Water: A Scenario-Based Life Cycle Assessment of Packaging and Logistics

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the potential of using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the field of bottled water sector as a method of green supply chain strategy. The study focused on packaging and logistics, given that they contribute significantly to the environmental impact of the raw materials used, to the production of bottles as well as to the transport and end-of-life treatment of the bottles. The main goals are to define the environmental hotspots and to benchmark a baseline bottled water supply chain against other scenarios (recycling PET bottles, logistics improvements, end-of-life changes).

The study uses a scenario approach and a system boundary from cradle to grave, as per ISO 14040 standard, with a functional unit of 1 000 liters of bottled water delivered to the consumer. The analysis is based on secondary data, where foreground data are taken from previous research and reports, and background data are taken from ecoinvent database based on the ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (H) method and modelled in openLCA. All environmental impact categories are computed, with special attention paid to climate change as packaging and transportation of bottled water are closely linked to greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.

The electricity produced during manufacture of the plastic bottles is the biggest hotspot, accounting for 87 % of the total baseline climate change impact of 21789 kg CO₂‑eq, with virgin PET resin accounting for a further 10%, transport 1.2% and waste management 0.5%. The use of recycled PET material instead of virgin material, on its own, reduces the climate change impact by 7.0%to 20264 kg CO₂‑eq, while the improvement of logistics contributes only 1.0% to 21565 kg CO₂‑eq. The combination of the two strategies provides the greatest reduction of 8.0%, with a result of 20040 kg CO₂‑eq. There is no burden shifting, that is, the strategies that benefit climate change also help with other categories like fossil resource use, acidification and toxicity.

The study illustrates that LCA can deliver clear and concrete evidence for making decisions in supply chains. It identifies the most critical environmental hot spots, discusses the options before implementing them and ensures that improvements in one place do not bring problems to another. The most effective single lever to reduce the carbon footprint is to use 100% recycled PET, this should be considered first. Optimizing logistics can be used as an ancillary value-added service for other purposes, but at a lower level. The thesis shows how LCA is a useful and useful tool to facilitate more sustainable choices in bottled water supply chain packaging and logistics.