Comparative Study on Environmental Impacts of Greyboard and Micro-corrugated Mooncake Packaging Boxes

CAI Wei; YE Huaxiong; LIN Qinbao; YANG Qinghua; CHEN Keqing; FENG Weiting; LIN Guang

doi:10.19554/j.cnki.1001-3563.2025.19.034

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Packaging Engineering ›› 2025, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (19) : 320-329. DOI: 10.19554/j.cnki.1001-3563.2025.19.034

Green Packaging and Circular Economy

Comparative Study on Environmental Impacts of Greyboard and Micro-corrugated Mooncake Packaging Boxes

CAI Wei¹, YE Huaxiong^2,3, LIN Qinbao^2*, YANG Qinghua⁴, CHEN Keqing¹, FENG Weiting¹, LIN Guang⁵

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Abstract

The study aims to quantitatively assess the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of greyboard and micro-corrugated mooncake packaging boxes to identify the most critical life cycle stages and factors in their production processes, thereby providing scientific evidence for packaging solution selection. The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology was used to compare the environmental performance of both packaging types with 3 500 mooncake packaging boxes (having a total unfolded area of 1 000 m²) as the functional unit. The modeling was conducted using SimaPro 10.2 software and Ecoinvent 3.11 database, with environmental impacts quantified across 16 categories according to the EF 3.1 method. Results demonstrated that climate change potential (carbon footprint) represented the most significant environmental impact category for both packaging types during production, with greyboard boxes generating 2 156.03 kg CO₂ eq./1 000 m² and micro-corrugated boxes producing 1 464.81 kg CO₂ eq./1 000 m². The environmental impacts of both packaging solutions were predominantly associated with steam and electricity consumption during raw material production. The sensitivity study revealed that adopting clean energy alternatives could reduce the carbon footprint by up to 11.17% for greyboard and 14.31% for micro-corrugated boxes, respectively. Comparative analysis under equivalent functional units shows superior environmental performance of micro-corrugated boxes over greyboard alternatives. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of clean energy demonstrates significant potential for reducing the packaging industry's environmental effect and facilitating green transformation.

Key words

product environmental footprint (PEF) / greyboard / micro-corrugated / mooncake packaging box / carbon footprint / environmental impact

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CAI Wei, YE Huaxiong, LIN Qinbao, YANG Qinghua, CHEN Keqing, FENG Weiting, LIN Guang. Comparative Study on Environmental Impacts of Greyboard and Micro-corrugated Mooncake Packaging Boxes[J]. Packaging Engineering. 2025, 46(19): 320-329 https://doi.org/10.19554/j.cnki.1001-3563.2025.19.034

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