Sustainable packaging
Sustainable packaging implies much more than simply changing the packaging material. Other factors such as efficient processes, avoiding rejects and optimised logistics also play a key role. This is why Schubert offers its customers sustainable packaging solutions that can span the entire supply chain.
Sustainable packaging with expertise
Sustainable packaging is so much more than just a current trend. It is an economic factor that should not be underestimated in the future. With us, you have a partner at your side with comprehensive expertise and highly advanced technology. Our packaging machines excel with outstanding flexibility, durability and retrofitability. Our packaging developers and the Schubert-Consulting team also support you with expert in-depth knowledge to sustainably optimise your packaging and packaging processes in terms of materials, resources and future-proofing. Discover how sustainable packaging works with Schubert. Find out more under “Environmentally friendly machines and services” and “Sustainable packaging”.
Environmentally friendly machines and services
Are you looking for an energy-efficient and durable packaging line to package your products sustainably? With our Schubert machines, you will successfully make the switch to efficient and environmentally friendly packaging solutions.
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Sustainable packaging
At Schubert, nothing is just standard. In our search for the best sustainable packaging for our customers, we are constantly researching and developing new concepts together with our partners. We can also optimise existing packaging at the customer’s request.
Go to sustainable packaging
Reliable, flexible and environmentally friendly
Relentless when it comes to energy efficiency and recyclability
The more efficient packaging processes are, the more sustainable production and packaging can be. Our modular machine concept and the consistent use of robotics ensure an ideal foundation for this. Our modular system is so flexible that packaging machines can always be adapted to your specific requirements. “The machines can process conventional packaging materials, such as plastic trays or composite films, as well as sustainable packaging made of cardboard or recyclable flowpack films,” explains Jan Köhler, Head of Line Planning and Projects. Schubert works tirelessly to improve the energy efficiency and recyclability of its lines.
An important aspect of making machines more efficient and therefore more environmentally friendly is Schubert Service. Because we understand service not only in terms of machine technology, but as comprehensive support along all processes and over the machine’s entire lifecycle. With our CARE Digital Services, we analyse your line down to the last detail and increase efficiency and performance to the greatest extent possible. This is also what sustainable packaging is all about today.
Outstanding flexibility, retrofitability and proven durability are what make our packaging machines future-proof and sustainable for our customers.
Jan Köhler
Head of Line Planning and Projects
Flexible packaging with conventional and sustainable materials
The decision to package sustainably often means having to switch between conventional and more sustainable packaging materials over a longer timeframe. With Schubert’s modular machines, this is not a problem – even if new materials keep being added. Our highly flexible robot technology allows either plastic or cardboard to be processed in the packaging process without major adjustments. For example, as a plastic or cardboard tray, as a display box, a reusable box or as cardboard packaging without glue. We also have special sealing technologies that are so gentle that monofilms or paper-based flowpack films can also be used. And finally, we also design our systems and robot tools in such a way that a format change can be carried out in the shortest possible time. The machine can then immediately restart packing with impeccable quality without requiring any further start-up adjustments.
More about our quick format changes
Our Flowpacker packs with all flowpack films, i.e. composite films, mono films and paper-based films.
Laura Gascho
Applications technology
Sustainable packaging thanks to material efficiency and waste avoidance
The efficient use of packaging material saves resources
Our robots work so precisely that packages can be filled much more ‘tightly’. Together with well-conceived pre-grouping, this saves packaging material with each individual cut. Even a few millimetres can result in a remarkable difference. If another layer of shipping cartons suddenly fits on the pallet, the optimised packaging even saves resources during transport, reducing CO2 emissions and costs.
Another type of material efficiency results from the economy cut: A material-saving and visually elegant alternative to cardboard packaging which can easily be run on Schubert machines as an alternative to conventional cross-cutting. With the economy cut, the side panels of the box are not attached to the bottom as usual, but to the front panel. This means that more blanks fit on a sheet with the same base area, but with different side lengths.
Avoiding rejects means environmentally friendly packaging
There are many reasons why products become rejects during packaging. Unplanned machine downtimes, inaccurately gripping robot tools, processes that are not ideally coordinated – the list is endless. This is precisely why we strive to reduce these factors as much as possible or even eliminate them entirely. Here, too, our robot technology plays a key role. It enables gentle product handling thanks to customised tools. Our Schubert image processing systems developed in-house enable thorough quality control: only flawless products are picked up by the robot.
More about our product-friendly solutions
Research, develop and optimise
The customer determines the packaging
At Schubert, it is not the packaging machine that determines which packaging materials to use, but the customer. Our machines can pack product into paper-based flowpacks and composite films, into plastic and cardboard trays, into shipping cartons and returnable boxes, and even into cartons without glue. How can we say this with one hundred percent certainty? “At our Schubert laboratory, we work with development partners to design sustainable packaging solutions for our customers and test them on our machines,” explains Michael Graf, Director Consulting at Schubert Consulting.
On request, we also work on our customers’ existing packaging and modify it, for example, in terms of volume and material consumption. If you want to optimise not only your packaging, but also your entire packaging process, the experts from Schubert-Consulting will support you as experienced consulting partners. Together with you, we will improve your packaging processes so that you benefit several times over. This extends to more sustainable logistics, for instance, when one more box then fits onto the pallet.
In every packaging and in every process, there is sustainable potential that we can tap into and leverage for our customers.
Michael Graf
Head of Schubert-Consulting
New ecological packaging from Schubert development
In our laboratory and packaging development department, we are constantly researching new environmentally friendly packaging solutions together with our industry partners. As a development partner for sustainable packaging, we bring together our expertise in machine technology with the most suitable material suppliers and material developers. The spectrum ranges from innovative cardboard trays to paper flowpacks and sustainable multipacks to thermoformed packaging alternatives. The goal is always the same for each variant: packaging that fulfils all the functions of the conventional material while being processed highly efficiently and cost-effectively in the machines. We evaluate the suitability of the prototypes in extensive tests directly on our packaging lines and use the results to adapt our machines even more closely to new materials.
We want to avoid any product and packaging material waste with our packaging, which is perfectly matched to the machines.
Valentin Köhler
Head of Packaging Development
Our partners for new sustainable packaging
We are confident that we can only achieve our sustainability goals together with our expert partners. And this is why we see Schubert as a team player that works with other manufacturers to drive overall industry development to meet customer needs. This is demonstrated by our diverse partnerships for sustainable packaging development, with which we bring innovative packaging solutions to market maturity via research and development.
Schubert-Consulting: More sustainability throughout the entire process
Sustainable packaging means thinking about things differently – even beyond the issue of material. If only a few millimetres of cardboard can influence logistics, what are the effects at entirely different points along the supply chain? Schubert-Consulting helps you broaden your perspective. We bring everyone involved to the table at the beginning of a project: to find a joint solution that makes the actual packaging process as efficient as possible. Especially in packaging development, this collaboration is necessary, because packaging today has to fulfil many different requirements that go far beyond product protection and transport. This is how we can generate real business added value along the entire process chain – all the way to the consumer.
Consulting-film