ERG Assesses COVID-19-Related Environmental Impacts on Product Manufacturing

COVID-19 is causing changes in global supply chains, consumer purchasing, and product use behavior that may increase or decrease the life cycle impacts of U.S. products. As a result, many manufacturers are experiencing reduced access to recycled content for packaging production. For a private client, ERG’s Life Cycle Assessment Group is evaluating how this reduced access affects the overall greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, energy use, and solid waste of one of their products. The calculated environmental impacts of these packaging supply chains can then be scaled up using total product sales to understand the full organizational packaging footprint changes due to COVID-19.