Case Study
Frosch: Cyclable Flexible Packaging Pouch
Cyclable Flexible Packaging Pouch now available in retail markets in Germany.
The first completely recyclable stand-up pouch, which won in the Sustainability category, is now on retail shelves. Soon the entire pouch portfolio for the Frosch brand will be converted to the new packaging.The innovation challenge: To develop a fully recyclable, all-polyethylene, stand-up pouch for the German cleaning brand „Frosch“. It took some time and quite some effort, but the result is a real milestone for the packaging industry. The resulting flexible pouch uses 70 % less material than its rigid bottle counterpart and is designed for a closed loop circular economy. The patented pioneering design overcomes many shortcomings of the recycling process and is the result of a joint consortium effort which started in 2015 by Werner & Mertz (Frosch), Mondi, EPEA Switzerland (Cradle to Cradle®), Der Grüne Punkt – Duales System Deutschland and Institut cyclos-HTP.
You can find out more about this product on the company website.
Additionally, at EPEA Switzerland we have been very active in research, documentation and publication of topic-related knowledge. Attached are some selected articles from the last years.
Case Study
Werner & Mertz – From linear to circular
Conventional management systems were developed for companies with linear structures. This means they are to some extent at odds with the principles of a circular economy. EPEA Switzerland and Werner & Mertz are working to reconcile the two approaches.
Management systems are intended to give companies structure and consequently make business processes optimally efficient. The same is true of environmental management systems certified to ISO 14001, for example. These already focus on environmental aspects in the life cycle perspective and the identification of potential opportunities and risks.
However, they still relate to companies with a linear structure and therefore do not incorporate the principles of a circular economy, such as Cradle to Cradle. This is now set to change through the work of the German family-run company Werner & Mertz, famous for its “Frosch” (frog) brand of professional and household cleaning supplies, and EPEA Switzerland, the accredited assessment body for the Cradle to Cradle Certified certification standard and Material Health Certification. They intend to develop management systems for companies structured for the circular economy.
A key step has been taken by Werner & Mertz with the launch of the “green care PROFESSIONAL” brand for the professional institutional and industrial sector. This brings together the principles of a management system that correctly implements processes with the principles of implementing the right processes under Cradle to Cradle in one principle that ensures the right processes are implemented correctly. Werner & Mertz has already been working towards this aim with its Frosch and green care PROFESSIONAL product ranges.
A further success on the road to combining linear management systems with the circular economy was achieved by EPEA Switzerland at the end of 2019. It entered into a cooperation agreement with the certification body Quality Austria to further align environmental management and circular economy systems. Now, EPEA Switzerland and Quality Austria plan to also exploit the potential offered by the European Union’s European Green Deal. This set of policy initiatives by the European Commission is a roadmap for making the EU’s economy sustainable.
Werner & Mertz are already operating with this in mind. „Only by shifting sustainability center stage in all its processes can a company effectively make and sell an eco-friendly product„, says Reinhard Schneider, CEO of Werner & Mertz.
