Innovación
Mejorar productos y procesos para reducir nuestra huella e impulsar la satisfacción del cliente.
Reflejos
- Greif encourages all colleagues to participate in the innovation and transformation of our product portfolio and organizational processes. Through our In-House Entrepreneur program, colleagues are empowered to explore new ideas and bring them to life.
- We aim to select projects based on the following criteria: overall value to Greif and our customers, potential financial return, and the sustainability impact.
- We work collaboratively with suppliers and customers to find innovative solutions to their pain points.
Por qué es importante la innovación
Product innovation is central to our pursuit of delivering quality products and legendary customer service. Our approach to innovation is aligned with our Build to Last Strategy and its core mission of Protecting Our Future, which encourages the development of new, more sustainable products and services that ultimately help advance a low-carbon and circular economy future. Our innovation approach is also aligned with our mission of Creating Thriving Communities, which enhances colleague safety and safeguards customer health through the continuous advancement of process innovation. Our innovative solutions inspire creativity, cultivate colleague engagement, and promote safety internally while bringing value to customers externally by increasing product efficiency, quality, sustainability, and more.
We understand environmental impacts occur across the value chain of our products. Our approach to innovation aims to support decarbonization and circular solutions through incorporating recycled content, enhancing product recyclability, increasing durability, optimizing resource efficiency, and offering end-of-life solutions.
Our Approach
At Greif, we encourage all colleagues and strategic business units to participate in innovating and transforming our product portfolio and organizational processes. We brief our Executive Leadership Team regularly about projects, innovation priorities, industry trends, and other considerations that could impact business operations. Led by the Director of Sustainable Innovation and comprised of representatives from each strategic business unit and corporate function, our Global Innovation Team facilitates idea-sharing and cross-enterprise collaboration.
Our innovation strategy takes a holistic approach, integrating environmental, social, and financial criteria to develop our sustainable packaging solutions. Aligned with the principles of circularity and dematerialization, we work with customers to develop products that meet performance and safety standards while minimizing environmental impacts, thereby increasing customer value. We prioritize creating sustainable products that have a lower carbon footprint, minimize environmental impact, and incorporate more recycled raw materials. We are dedicated to reducing single-use plastic and non-recyclable products by advancing recycled material-based alternatives and eliminating plastic through our innovative barrier coatings.
EnviroRap
Launched in 2024, EnviroRAP is an innovative product developed through our In-House Entrepreneur Program. This sustainable packaging solution is made from repulpable and recyclable material and is designed for use in restaurant take home boxes. Unlike traditional poly-coated packaging, EnviroRAP offers a more sustainable yet cost-effective option. In line with our history of applying circularity principles to our products, EnviroRAP can be returned to our mills and recycled.
Innovation is a driving force behind our product development and circularity efforts. We strive to make products that reduce our impact on the planet while collaborating with internal and external customers to explore creative and innovative solutions to their challenges. In line with this, we are concentrating on implementing product life cycle assessments to advance our circularity strategy and increase transparency around the sustainability of our products. Our focus on product life cycle has encouraged us to think creatively about post-consumer resin products, reconditioning, plastic treatment, and alternative barrier solutions. For more information on our circularity initiatives, please see the Fabricación circular sección de este informe.
Modificar puede
Launched in 2024, the ModCan is a customer-driven innovation designed to improve waste management through increased safety and efficiency. Designed for laboratory waste and other environmental remediation by-products, the ModCan optimizes space utilization by increasing the number of carboys that fit in drums. Greif engineered this innovative product to emphasize ergonomic safety and versatility while retaining compatibility with traditional drum systems. The ModCan saves up to 42 percent of CO2e emissions compared to traditional labpacks and increases drum utilization from the ‘old way,’ which only uses 36 percent of the drum to the ‘new way’ that optimizes the drum by using 82 percent of the space.We offer opportunities for our colleagues to engage in innovation. Our In-House Entrepreneur Program provides colleagues with opportunities to contribute innovative ideas through a simple portal on Greif’s intranet. Colleagues can submit as many ideas as they want, and if selected, the Innovation Team works to develop the idea through several steps and trials. Our Innovator of the Month recognition program acknowledges and celebrates colleagues who contribute significantly to our innovation initiatives through interviews, pictures, and articles explaining in-house entrepreneurs’ work and innovations.
Participación de los colegas en la innovación
At Greif, we actively encourage our colleagues to engage in innovation and entrepreneurship. We strive to create an inspiring, dynamic, and engaging work environment that promotes creative problem-solving and continuous learning. All colleagues, including those in traditionally operational roles, have the freedom to explore, take risks, and learn from failures. Our Innovator of the Month and In-House Entrepreneurs programs reflect our commitment to engaging colleagues in finding innovative solutions to challenges faced by our customers and industry. When new ideas are presented, Greif applies a lean start up methodology, rapidly developing a minimum viable product and gathering customer feedback before committing additional resources.
Our Innovation Team regularly monitors progress on our innovation objectives, meeting frequently to share updates and align priorities. Innovation plays an important role in protecting the health and safety of our colleagues; the team collaborates with colleagues to develop solutions and implement technologies that make processes safer. In 2024, the reorganization of the company streamlined our approach, enabling us to drive product innovations that are poised to make a global impact.
Goals, Progress, & Performance
Through collaboration with customers and internal stakeholders, Greif aims to improve our products and gain firsthand insights into unmet customer needs to inform future innovation strategies. Our Global Innovation Team is proactively engaging customers by working with Greif’s commercial teams and increasing customer site visits. Innovation is critical to providing legendary customer service. We aim to track the shift in revenue streams that is generated specifically from these innovations. In 2024, $991 million of our revenue was generated from sustainability-tagged products within our legacy Global Industrial Products and our Life Cycle Services businesses.
Marcas láser en contenedores IBC
Greif Sweden/Nordic es la primera empresa del mercado en sustituir las marcas de inyección de tinta por marcas láser en contenedores intermedios para graneles (IBC), lo que reduce el uso de tinta a base de disolventes durante la producción. Al eliminar el uso de disolventes y tinta, el entorno de producción es más limpio. También podemos reducir el peso del IBC en un kilogramo al eliminar la placa que se utilizaba tradicionalmente para el marcado láser. Creemos que esta innovación establecerá un nuevo estándar para las marcas en los IBC.
Aligeramiento e innovación en la forma de los bidones
En 2015, Greif fabricó sus primeros modelos de bidones más ligeros de 20 y 25 litros. Este diseño es un 15 por ciento más ligero que el modelo anterior y, al mismo tiempo, mantiene las especificaciones de rendimiento del diseño anterior. Debido a su menor peso, los nuevos bidones reducen los materiales y la energía utilizados en la producción hasta en un 15 por ciento y tienen un menor impacto en las emisiones. En 2019, ampliamos esta línea de productos para incluir tamaños de 16 y 18 litros. Ahora producimos nuestros bidones más ligeros en Italia, Israel, Suecia y Singapur.
Bidones ECOEX
Los envases de plástico multicapa COEX combinan varias capas de diferentes materiales plásticos en una sola estructura y ofrecen muchos beneficios en términos de rendimiento de barrera, en particular para aplicaciones de envasado de alimentos y agroquímicos. Sin embargo, cuando se trituran nuevamente, los plásticos COEX solo se pueden utilizar en aplicaciones de bajo rendimiento. En respuesta a la necesidad de nuestros clientes de contar con envases reciclables con un rendimiento de barrera superior, creamos nuestra línea de bidones ECOEX. La tecnología ECOEX permite a Greif producir un innovador bidón multicapa que se puede reciclar mediante procesos de triturado para producir bidones y botellas de alto rendimiento con certificación de la ONU. ECOEX también reduce los costos para nuestros clientes, quienes generalmente pagan una tarifa de recolección mayor por la recolección de envases COEX después de su uso. Seguimos impulsando la innovación que respalda nuestra estrategia de economía circular y satisface las necesidades de nuestros clientes. El equipo LATAM GIP recibió el Premio de Sostenibilidad Michael J. Gasser 2021 por su contribución a nuestra estrategia de economía circular al tiempo que satisface las necesidades de nuestros clientes.
Un enfoque más ligero
Para responder a las demandas de los clientes de reducir peso y optimizar los costos de transporte, nuestros colegas de Greif Latinoamérica diseñaron una innovación novedosa en tambores de plástico utilizando un enfoque de paredes laterales facetadas nunca antes visto para tambores de plástico grandes. Esta mejora eliminó hasta el 14 por ciento de la resina del tambor y mantuvo el rendimiento. El diseño no solo reduce el uso de materia prima, sino que también optimizó la utilización de palés debido a su configuración única que permite transportar más tambores en el mismo espacio que el diseño anterior. El tambor facetado es una solución más sostenible tanto para reducir el consumo de recursos naturales como para reducir el uso de materias primas basadas en combustibles fósiles y las emisiones de CO2 durante el transporte.2 emisiones durante el transporte.
Mejor imagen de marca con Drum 360
En Greif, ahora tenemos la capacidad de imprimir imágenes de alta resolución directly onto steel drums using the latest print technologies. This capability is the direct result of an investment designed to meet the needs of customers who are looking for ways to differentiate their products and generate impactful packaging design to support the price point of high value products. In addition to adding value for our customers, this process eliminated the need for a standard gas oven, using LED-based UV curing during the production process. This new process saves 0.5 kilograms CO2 per drum. Greif strategically placed the new Drum 360 technology in plants close to customers who use this new technology, in the Belgium, France, Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Poland.
GCUBE Connect: seguimiento en tiempo real de sus IBC
De Greif Conexión GCUBE solución, Lanzado En la conferencia virtual de LogiChem, GCUBE Connect ofrece información de seguimiento en tiempo real sobre el IBC de un cliente a través de la aplicación de un dispositivo basado en Internet de las cosas. Un panel de control basado en el cliente muestra en tiempo real dónde se encuentra un IBC, el nivel del producto llenado y la temperatura ambiental. Este panel de control permite a los clientes planificar con anticipación las entregas de producto llenado y la llegada de nuevos IBC, así como programar la recolección de IBC vacíos. GCUBE Connect también admite una mejor gestión de los residuos en los IBC. Cada IBC que ingresa a la instalación se pesa automáticamente para determinar cuánto residuo hay en el contenedor y determinar cómo se tratará. Esta innovación combina bien con la capacidad de Greif France de recoger y entregar IBC reacondicionados desde cualquier sitio a lo largo de la cadena de suministro de un cliente, en lugar de una sola ubicación. Juntos, simplifican la logística para el cliente y aumentan la transparencia.
