Franklin Associates’ Life Cycle Assessment Work Highlighted in Recent BioCycle Article

A recent article published in the March/April 2019 issue of BioCycle highlights important contributions that Franklin Associates, a division of ERG, made to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ’s) research on how different packaging options impact the environment. More specifically, Franklin Associates conducted an extensive literature review to identify studies that compared packaging options with differences in environmental attributes widely perceived as indicators of reduced environmental impacts, including recycled content, recyclability, compostability, and bio-based content. The results of the studies were then analyzed to determine whether packaging and food service ware with these attributes consistently showed lower environmental impacts across their life cycle than products without these attributes. Oregon DEQ will use the results of the Franklin Associates study to increase public understanding that qualitative environmental attributes alone are not always reliable predictors of lower environmental impacts.