Sustainable Packaging

According to the law (art. 35 a, decree law 22/97), packaging is a “product made of any materials designed to contain and protect specific goods, whether raw materials or finished products, facilitate their handling and delivery by the producer to the consumer or user and ensure their presentation, as well as any throw-away items used to such end”.

Packaging serves various purposes, such as protecting goods, preventing theft, being economical and achieving a balance between effective performance, cost and environmental impact in terms of both the material and time used in packaging operations and the necessary environmental protection. From an ecological viewpoint, it is important for packaging to be made of materials that are easy to recycle and of as small a quantity of material as possible.

Under the law cited above, packaging comes in three types or functional categories: primary, secondary, tertiary.

• Primary packaging (packaging for sales) is designed to provide a sales unit for the end user or consumer in the point of sale (art. 35, b). In Luxottica, this packaging is a case containing a pair of glasses.
• Secondary packaging (multiple packaging is designed to contain a certain number of sales units in the point of sale irrespective of whether they are sold to the end user or consumer in such quantity or used merely to fill shelf space in the point of sale. It can be removed without affecting the product’s characteristics (art. 35, c). In Luxottica, secondary packaging is a white box containing a given number of cases (containing pairs of glasses).
• Tertiary packaging (packaging for transport) is designed to facilitate handling and transport of a certain number of sale units or multiple packagings and protect them from tampering and damage during transport, and does not include containers for road, rail, sea or air transport (art. 35, d). This type of final packaging is needed to ship eyewear that is already in primary and secondary packaging and comes in the form of pallets or boxes.

Luxottica has always been sensitive to packaging issues and the need to organize efficient management of packaging process. Such process is in the following three phases, all of which are under continuous improvement:

• procurement of materials;
• internal processing;
• delivery to clients.
   

In all three phases, the priorities are to protect the environment and optimize service and costs.
Luxottica’s focus on packaging starts with its design and involves suppliers that have environmental certification. Internal processing is geared to using minimum amounts of packaging (to limit waste and waste disposal problems). What waste there is is sorted and transferred to 3rd parties for recycling and re-use.