Inovação
Melhorar produtos e processos para reduzir nossa pegada e aumentar a satisfação do cliente.
Destaques
- 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 que a inovação é importante
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 Fabricação Circular seção deste relatório.
ModCan
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.
Engajamento dos colegas na inovação
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.
Marcações a laser em IBCs
A Greif Sweden/Nordic é a primeira no mercado a substituir marcações a jato de tinta por marcações a laser em recipientes intermediários para granéis (IBCs), reduzindo o uso de tinta à base de solvente durante a produção. Ao eliminar o uso de solventes e tinta, o ambiente de produção fica mais limpo. Também conseguimos reduzir o peso do IBC em um quilo, removendo a placa tradicionalmente usada para marcação a laser. Acreditamos que essa inovação definirá um novo padrão para marcações em IBCs.
Tornando mais leve e inovando o formato dos galões
A Greif fabricou nossos primeiros modelos de jerrycan de 20 e 25 litros mais leves em 2015. Este design é 15 por cento mais leve do que o modelo anterior, mantendo as especificações de desempenho do design anterior. Devido ao peso reduzido, os novos jerrycans reduzem os materiais e a energia usados na produção em até 15 por cento e têm um impacto reduzido nas emissões. Em 2019, expandimos esta linha de produtos para incluir os tamanhos de 16 e 18 litros. Agora produzimos nossos jerrycans mais leves na Itália, Israel, Suécia e Cingapura.
Bidão ECOEX
A embalagem plástica multicamadas COEX combina várias camadas de diferentes materiais plásticos em uma única estrutura e oferece muitos benefícios de desempenho de barreira, particularmente para aplicações de embalagens agroquímicas e de alimentos. No entanto, quando remoídos, os plásticos COEX só podem ser usados em aplicações de baixo desempenho. Em resposta à necessidade de nossos clientes por embalagens recicláveis com desempenho de barreira superior, criamos nossa linha ECOEX de galões. A tecnologia ECOEX permite que a Greif produza um galão multicamadas inovador que pode ser reciclado por meio de processos de remoagem para produzir galões e garrafas de alto desempenho com certificação da ONU. O ECOEX também reduz os custos para nossos clientes que normalmente pagam uma taxa de coleta maior para a coleta de embalagens COEX após o uso. Continuamos a impulsionar a inovação que apoia nossa estratégia de economia circular e atende às necessidades de nossos clientes. A equipe LATAM GIP recebeu o Prêmio de Sustentabilidade Michael J. Gasser 2021 por sua contribuição para nossa estratégia de economia circular ao mesmo tempo em que atende às necessidades de nossos clientes.
Uma abordagem mais leve
Para responder às demandas dos clientes para remover peso e otimizar os custos de transporte, nossos colegas da Greif Latin America projetaram uma inovação inovadora de tambor de plástico usando uma abordagem de parede lateral facetada nunca vista antes para grandes tambores de plástico. Essa melhoria removeu até 14 por cento da resina no tambor, mantendo o desempenho. O design não apenas reduz o uso de matéria-prima, mas também otimiza a utilização de paletes devido à sua configuração exclusiva, que permite que mais tambores sejam transportados no mesmo espaço que o design legado. O tambor facetado é uma solução mais sustentável tanto na redução do consumo de recursos naturais quanto na redução do uso de matéria-prima baseada em combustíveis fósseis e nas emissões de CO2 durante o transporte.2 emissões durante o transporte.
Melhor Branding com Drum 360
Na Greif, agora temos a capacidade de imprimir imagens de alta resolução 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: Rastreamento em tempo real para seus IBCs
de Greif Conexão GCUBE solução, lançado na conferência virtual LogiChem, fornece informações de rastreamento em tempo real sobre o IBC de um cliente por meio da aplicação de um dispositivo baseado na Internet das Coisas. Um painel baseado no cliente exibe em tempo real onde um IBC está localizado, o nível do produto preenchido e a temperatura ambiente. Este painel permite que os clientes planejem com antecedência as entregas do produto preenchido e a chegada de novos IBCs, bem como programem as coletas de IBCs vazios. O GCUBE Connect também oferece suporte a um melhor gerenciamento de resíduos nos IBCs. Cada IBC que entra na instalação é pesado automaticamente para determinar quanto resíduo está no contêiner para determinar como ele será tratado. Esta inovação combina bem com a capacidade da Greif France de pegar e entregar IBCs recondicionados de qualquer local ao longo da cadeia de suprimentos de um cliente, em oposição a um único local. Juntos, eles simplificam a logística para o cliente e aumentam a transparência.
