Why packaging companies need to tell their own sustainability story

When it comes to telling the sus­tain­abil­i­ty sto­ry, the pack­ag­ing indus­try has his­tor­i­cal­ly kept out of the lime­light, leav­ing its con­sumer-fac­ing cus­tomers, such as retail­ers and brands, to both write the script and deliv­er the lines about waste, recy­cling and cir­cu­lar­i­ty.

But now, under mount­ing pres­sure from NGOs and oth­er pres­sure groups to reduce waste, the sec­tor is hav­ing to take cen­tre stage and address its audi­ence direct­ly.

In March, for instance, indus­try body the Alliance for Bev­er­age Car­tons and the Envi­ron­ment (ACE) pub­lished The Bev­er­age Car­ton Roadmap to 2030 and Beyond. This doc­u­ment pledges that mem­bers of the alliance will “deliv­er the most sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing for resilient food-sup­ply sys­tems, which is renew­able, cli­mate-pos­i­tive and cir­cu­lar”.

The indus­try is engag­ing on sev­er­al fronts, says the ACE’s direc­tor-gen­er­al, Annick Car­pen­tier. It has com­mit­ted to “take action on all parts of the val­ue chain, from sus­tain­able sourc­ing to cli­mate impact and recy­cling. Increas­ing the col­lec­tion and recy­cling of bev­er­age car­tons to reach rates of 90% and at least 70% respec­tive­ly, plus achiev­ing decar­bon­i­sa­tion in line with the 1.5ºC-aligned sci­ence-based tar­gets, are exam­ples of key goals.”

Sharing the innovation story

While col­lec­tive action and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, co-ordi­nat­ed by trade organ­i­sa­tions such as the ACE, is key to tack­ling glob­al prob­lems such as the cli­mate emer­gency, sev­er­al play­ers in the pack­ag­ing sec­tor have been tak­ing the ini­tia­tive indi­vid­u­al­ly. 

Many com­pa­nies have “already cut down their pack­ag­ing use and ramped up the con­tent of recy­cled mate­ri­als in their prod­ucts”. So says Nick Brown, head of sus­tain­abil­i­ty at multi­na­tion­al bot­tling com­pa­ny Coca-Cola Europa­cif­ic Part­ners (CCEP), who adds: “We recent­ly announced the tran­si­tion to 100% recy­cled plas­tic in our on-the-go bot­tles. We recog­nise that it’s down to us to com­mu­ni­cate this to our cus­tomers and oth­er stake­hold­ers.”

CCEP is work­ing on a whole range of inno­va­tions. They include projects with start­up CuRe Tech­nol­o­gy on a sys­tem to recy­cle poly­ester waste; with Loop Indus­tries to increase its sup­ply of 100% recy­cled PET; and with Pabo­co to devel­op a paper bot­tle. These ini­tia­tives all feed into Coca-Cola’s ‘World With­out Waste’ envi­ron­men­tal pro­gramme, which has a goal of col­lect­ing and recy­cling a bot­tle or can for each one sold by 2030. This ini­tia­tive is pro­mot­ed using on-pack mes­sag­ing.

Whether act­ing in con­cert or indi­vid­u­al­ly, all play­ers in the indus­try must accept respon­si­bil­i­ty for their part in the envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis and do their fair share of work in solv­ing it. That’s the view of Mar­co Ten Bruggen­cate, com­mer­cial vice-pres­i­dent of pack­ag­ing and spe­cial­i­ty plas­tics for EMEA at chem­i­cals giant Dow.

“Incre­men­tal change is not enough. We need major inno­va­tion and invest­ment to make a mean­ing­ful impact on the cri­sis,” he argues. “Our stake­hold­ers have high expec­ta­tions of us to dri­ve the trans­for­ma­tion­al change required. Only those com­pa­nies that make the nec­es­sary leaps will sur­vive.”

Dow has set itself some stretch­ing envi­ron­men­tal tar­gets. These include mak­ing its pack­ag­ing 100% reusable or recy­clable by 2025; remov­ing 1 mil­lion tonnes of plas­tic from the waste stream by 2030; and mak­ing the whole busi­ness car­bon-neu­tral by 2050.

Again, tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion runs in tan­dem with pub­lic engage­ment. While Dow is break­ing new ground with Shell to elec­tri­fy steam-crack­er fur­naces and reduce car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in the pro­duc­tion of plas­tic, it’s also pro­duc­ing a pod­cast series called Plas­tics Unwrapped. This explores sus­tain­abil­i­ty themes and, with the help of expert guests, explains some of the more com­plex tech­ni­cal issues.

Changing business and consumer culture

Much of this activ­i­ty is indica­tive of the cul­tur­al change hap­pen­ing in the indus­try and the wider busi­ness world when it comes to sus­tain­abil­i­ty. But change is also need­ed on the oth­er side of the counter, sug­gests Gladys Nay­lor, head of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment at Mon­di Group, a pro­duc­er of paper and oth­er pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als.

“Reusabil­i­ty requires a behav­iour­al shift on the part of con­sumers, as con­ve­nience and light­weight­ing must often be sac­ri­ficed to achieve dura­bil­i­ty,” she argues. “It will be impor­tant to con­sid­er trade-offs care­ful­ly as we trans­form our busi­ness mod­els.”

Jen­ny Wasse­naar, vice-pres­i­dent for sus­tain­abil­i­ty at Triv­i­um Pack­ag­ing, believes that the indus­try needs to devel­op more effec­tive edu­ca­tion cam­paigns to improve pub­lic aware­ness of the issues it’s try­ing to address.

“We know, for instance, that a gap exists between the actu­al recy­cla­bil­i­ty of mate­ri­als and con­sumer per­cep­tions of how recy­clable they are,” she says. “Pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing starts with objec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing to con­sumers the dif­fer­ence in the recy­cla­bil­i­ty and recy­cling rates of mate­ri­als.”

In its annu­al Glob­al Buy­ing Green Report, Triv­i­um Pack­ag­ing shares insight­ful research into con­sumers’ views on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and how these influ­ence their pur­chas­ing habits. Just over two-thirds (67%) of respon­dents to its 2021 sur­vey iden­ti­fied as “envi­ron­men­tal­ly aware”. The same pro­por­tion said that they con­sid­ered the recy­cla­bil­i­ty of pack­ag­ing to be impor­tant, while 64% said it was impor­tant to them that their pur­chas­es came in pack­ag­ing that con­tained at least some recy­cled mate­r­i­al.

Adapt to win in an expanding market

Pack­ag­ing remains a growth indus­try. Accord­ing to a fore­cast pub­lished by Stratis­tics Mar­ket Research Con­sult­ing in Novem­ber 2020, the market’s glob­al val­ue will rock­et from just under $930bn (£670bn) in 2019 to more than $1.65tn by 2027.

The onus is on all play­ers in the indus­try to tru­ly earn their share of the con­sid­er­able finan­cial rewards on offer, says Robert de Jong, CEO of Coda Group, a pro­duc­er of com­postable biopoly­mers.

“Every man­u­fac­tur­er needs to present inno­va­tions to brands and retail­ers,” he argues. “We must take charge of the chal­lenges fac­ing the pack­ag­ing indus­try. This can’t wait for leg­is­la­tion. We all face a seis­mic shift in sus­tain­abil­i­ty – and those that don’t adapt will fall behind.”