TemperPack’s journey to disrupt the packaging industry through innovative ESG integration
With the integration of Position Green’s software, TemperPack has taken a leap forward in their ESG reporting and analytics. Liz Helm, the Sustainability Manager at TemperPack, highlights the critical role of Position Green in automating analytics, enhancing data visibility, and enabling the company to shift from a reactive to a proactive stance in its sustainability journey. As a customer of Position Green, TemperPack not only streamlines its operations but also reinforces its commitment to environmental responsibility by leveraging actionable insights that drive strategic decisions and improvements. TemperPack is not only able to meet the demands of its stakeholders but also positions itself as a leader in the sustainable packaging industry, showcasing that eco-friendly alternatives can indeed coexist with high performance and consumer satisfaction.
What is your role within the organisation?
My role as Sustainability Manager is to align stakeholder activities with our mission to replace plastic packaging with high-performing sustainable alternatives. This starts with defining metrics that are important to stakeholders, getting good at measuring those metrics, and then setting goals for improvement. The last, but arguably most important, part of my role is communicating all of this to stakeholders and bringing feedback into the process.
What was the starting point of TemperPack’s ESG journey?
TemperPack was founded to provide a better alternative to expanded polystyrene (EPS, or Styrofoam) in perishable ecommerce shipments. The connectedness of our modern economy allows you to order just about anything you need and it will arrive within a matter of hours – but it also creates an increased demand for high-performance packaging that typically results in landfilled waste or pollution. TemperPack products are designed to perform as well as EPS but can be recycled and composted after you open the box.
Our investors were the catalyst for formalizing ESG reporting. Our investors and customers are the most active stakeholder groups in defining impact metrics for both our products and the company. We’re lucky to have engaged stakeholders supporting us, but the demand for information communicated in different ways, at different times, using different methodologies was causing us to be slow and reactive rather than using the data to drive decisions. We needed to find a tool that would allow us to automate some of this work and help us communicate across stakeholders.
What key needs did you identify?
There are a lot of tools that can do scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG accounting, but we also needed to track and analyse Social, Governance, and product-specific metrics in the same place. As a mature start-up with a lean internal sustainability team, we needed a tool that was as nimble as we are. The ideal tool would meet us where we are today and start leveraging what we have, while offering the capacity to grow with us as we develop our ESG programming and expand our operations.
“Position Green’s software is robust yet scalable, tailored to our needs”
Liz Helm – Sustainability Manager at Temperpack
How did Temperpack become aware of Position Green, and what motivated you to explore its potential?
I had demoed 4 or 5 other ESG platforms at the time when a Sales Director from Position Green reached out to us on LinkedIn. Although I hadn’t come across it in my initial search, I trusted the knowledge base of founders and advisors and it felt like a company with a culture aligned with TemperPack’s. What made me want to meet with Position Green’s team is that the tool had the muscle and scalability of a robust reporting tool but could be scoped to meet us where we are today.
What are your main sustainability objectives and how do you successfully manage to harmonise your ambitions with the demands of your investors?
Our vision of success is creating value for our stakeholders by bringing sustainability into the decision-making process across the company. For packaging, that means using LCA data during the design phase, finding ways to help our customers meet their sustainability goals, and setting emission reduction targets for our own operations. But all of these objectives start with analytics and increased data visibility, which Position Green provides.
How does Position Green help with your competitive positioning and ESG transformation journey?
Position Green transforms our ESG journey from reactive to proactive by automating analytics and establishing formal data-gather processes. We’ve built the platform to be custom to our investor’s questionnaires and common customer concerns, so we can use the visualisations to communicate our impact. Position Green provides visibility to our data that was previously stuck in emails, spreadsheets, and exchanged as tribal knowledge, and allows us to make decisions based on our business activity.
Based on your sustainability reporting 2023 what would be your ambitions for 2024?
Now that we have a tool to analyse our data and a clear vision of our baseline, we can begin making reduction goals for each metric. In 2024, we are using Position Green to engage internal stakeholders into each metric to highlight how our decisions and culture translate into environmental impact. I’m already thinking about what other metrics we can add, refine, and customise in 2025 as our business grows!
About TemperPack
TemperPack was founded in 2015 to help companies ship perishable products without Styrofoam® and other unnecessary plastic waste. Today, with operations in Virginia, Michigan, and Nevada in the United States, TemperPack is the largest producer of sustainable materials that protect temperature-sensitive shipments of food and life science products.
Their mission is to reduce landfill waste and carbon pollution by displacing legacy plastic packaging with recyclable and compostable packaging that match the performance and functionality of incumbent materials. As the demand for perishable goods and pharmaceuticals grows, TemperPack is committed to offering companies sustainable choices that benefit both the planet and their consumers.
Position Green supports TemperPack with our sustainability reporting software.
