AIP Heads to New Zealand for Life Cycle Inventory Training

by Events on 2010-11-28 21:39:19

The Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), in conjunction with the Packaging Council of New Zealand, are running a half-day course on the introduction to Life Cycle Inventory and Carbon Footprinting with Professor Gordon Robertson FAIP as course presenter. The training course will be held on Thursday the 24th of February 2011 in Auckland, New Zealand.

The Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), in collaboration with the Packaging Council of New Zealand, is pleased to offer this half day training course on life cycle inventory and carbon footprinting. The Packaging Council of New Zealand’s Code of Practice for Packaging Design, Education and Procurement deals with low impact materials. A key design factor in selecting packaging materials is the environmental impact these materials will have throughout the packaging’s life cycle. Understanding life cycle inventory and carbon footprinting is important for making informed decisions which can be backed by scientific data.

This half-day Professional Development training course provides a comprehensive introduction to Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) - an inventory that identifies and quantifies energy and resource use and environmental discharges through the entire product life cycle, i.e. from cradle to grave. Resource inputs, energy requirements, and releases to the air, water, and land for each step in the manufacture of a product or process are quantified, from the extraction of the raw materials from the earth to ultimate disposal of the wastes.

LCI studies are usually comparative analyses in which two or more packages are compared on the basis of providing equivalent function, with the results giving an environmental profile of the systems studied. The LCI identifies those system components or life cycle steps that are the main contributors to environmental burdens such as energy use, solid waste, and atmospheric and waterborne emissions, enabling companies to effectively target efforts for environmental improvement. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an extension of LCI to identify potential environmental and health impacts of products or processes.

Objective
At the completion of this half day training course, participants should be able to:

Understand what Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is;
Be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of LCI;
Examine real LCIs that have been performed on actual packages;
Have a basic understanding of PAS 2050 and carbon footprinting.

Who should attend?
This training course is intended for people who have a direct interest and involvement in packaging within all packaging-associated industries (both suppliers and users). This includes the production, development, technical, purchasing, sales, QA/QC, marketing, regulatory and development functions. It will be particularly relevant for companies who are looking to introduce measurement systems in line with the performance indicators in section three of the Packaging Council of New Zealand’s Code of Practice for Packaging Design, Education and Procurement.

For a booking form to attend the half day training course simply phone the AIP National Office on +61 7 3278 4490, email info@aipack.com.au or log on to the events page on www.aipack.com.au to book on-line.

About the Presenter - Professor Gordon Robertson, FAIP                 
Professor Gordon Robertson is a food packaging consultant, expert witness, author and trainer, and an adjunct Professor in the School of Land, Crop and Food Sciences at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.  Prior to that he was for 11 years Vice President for Environmental & External Affairs for Tetra Pak in their Asia Regional Headquarters where he was closely involved in the commissioning, interpretation and communication of life cycle analyses. Before that he was Foundation Professor of Packaging Technology at Massey University, New Zealand where he taught courses in food packaging for 21 years.

The 2nd edition of his book FOOD PACKAGING PRINCIPLES & PRACTICE was published by CRC Press in the USA in 2006 and is used in universities and by industry around the world. The chapter on Food Packaging and the Environment is regarded as one of the most balanced introductions to the subject and includes a section on life cycle assessment. He offers training courses in food packaging using the book as a text. Recently he contributed a chapter on Sustainable Food Packaging to a book published in the UK.

A food technologist by training, he has a Master of Technology and PhD in food technology as well as a Management Diploma. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science & Technology, and a Fellow of the US Institute of Food Technologists. In addition he is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Packaging and a Past President and Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science & Technology. He is a member of the editorial boards of several journals including Packaging Technology & Science.