1. What initial information should be gathered to define strategic areas for improving the packaging used?

Packaging is first and foremost a product's component which, by ensuring its physical and mechanical protection, helps to prevent the waste of resources and energy involved in disposing of a damaged product. But packaging can itself be a source of unnecessary environmental impact, because it fails to perform this protective function correctly, because it uses too much or the wrong material, or because it is ill-suited to the supply chain that employs it... In this fact sheet, we'll look at the ways in which these failures or inadequacies can be identified.

The first step is to identify the regulatory obligations that apply in the countries of the company's customers. In Europe, for example, Directive 2004-12-CE (see bibliography in the "Further reading" section) establishes the obligation for companies :

• Guarantee...