Building on its March 2013 Corporate Sustainability Metrics release, the Flexible Packaging Association continued developing life cycle assessment capabilities with PTIS, LLC using EcoImpact-COMPASS software to compare packaging formats across environmental indicators including carbon impact, fossil fuel use, water consumption, product-to-package ratio, and material sent to landfill.
By late 2013, growing e-commerce fulfillment volumes prompted brand owners and retailers to question whether poly mailers, flexible pouches, and film-based dunnage outperformed corrugated and rigid alternatives when accounting for dimensional weight charges, outbound shipping frequency, and protective performance per unit shipped.
FPA's analytical approach modeled primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging components—including air pillows, bubble wrap, and crumpled paper dunnage—to capture total packaging mass and environmental burden per delivered product. Dimensional weight economics, where carriers bill on volume-equivalent weight rather than actual scale weight, favored lightweight flexible formats on several product categories.
The 2013 methodology development established the case-study framework FPA would later publish formally in its Sustainability Life Cycle and Economic Impacts of Flexible Packaging in E-commerce report, which quantified comparisons across products including cereal, peanut butter, shoes, laundry detergent, and flat mailers.
Converters producing e-commerce mailers and fulfillment film during 2013 began receiving RFP questions referencing LCA-style comparisons rather than simple material weight claims—signaling that flexible packaging value propositions in direct-to-consumer channels would increasingly require documented shipping and lifecycle evidence, not just gauge reduction metrics.