What does the packaging industry need to do to ensure it is considered an ally in the sustainability transition? Elopak’s outgoing CEO Thomas Körmendi draws on his more than 30 years of packaging industry experience to answer this question.
The packaging industry has changed significantly during the past decades. In the 1990s, few people debated cartons, bottles or wrappers beyond cost and convenience. Today, packaging has become a proxy battlefield for the sustainability transition — a visible symbol of waste, pollution, and corporate credibility.
That scrutiny is warranted. But it has also created a risk: that Europe focuses on the most visible part of the system and misses what will determine success in the next decade. The challenges ahead are no longer about choosing the ‘right’ material and moving on.
They are systemic: proving sustainability with evidence, designing packaging for real world outcomes, preventing product waste at scale, and building the collection and recycling systems needed to make regulation more than simply words on paper.
As I prepare to step down as CEO at Elopak, I have been reflecting on what this industry — and policymakers — need to get right next if packaging is to become an ally in the quest for net zero rather than a perpetual target.
Sustainability shift – from stories to substance
Over the past three decades, the conversation has shifted from a narrow focus on environmental protection to a broader sustainability agenda. Conversations used to center primarily on renewability and questions such as fossil fuel depletion, often through the lens of resource scarcity. Fast forward to 2026 and customers have become much more forensic and demanding on this front, and rightly so.
However, consumers still struggle to compare packaging formats quickly and confidently at the point of purchase. If we are serious about conscious consumption, we urgently need a common approach that clearly sets out what data is shown, how it is calculated, and how claims are substantiated.
More broadly, the industry must engineer a wholesale shift from broad narratives to auditable, comparable metrics — moving from marketing language to proof points, and from information overload to data that genuinely helps brand owners and consumers decide.
Design with purpose
Packaging has always been a powerful branding tool. As sustainability credentials have become increasingly important drivers of consumer purchasing decisions, there has been a move away from novelty and towards authenticity. Whereas 30 years ago glossy and metallic finishes or unusual shapes and formats were all the rage, today consumers increasingly favor natural looking packaging and formats that reflect convenience and restraint.
This creates a welcome window of opportunity for industry to supercharge packaging solutions that serve clear functions: protecting products, minimizing resource use, and enabling circularity. Industry must grasp this opening to move beyond simplistic debates about materials and instead design packaging based on performance, lifecycle impact, and end of life reality.
Waste is the blind spot – and the biggest opportunity
One of the most urgent areas for action remains waste. The so-called packaging paradox, whereby packaging is required to protect products that would otherwise be wasted but can itself be a source of waste and pollution, remains unresolved.
Much has been done to call out excessive and unnecessary packaging in recent years, and yet how many of us make it through a week without seeing tangible examples of this very problem; a small electronic item delivered to the house in a large cardboard box or an individually wrapped piece of fruit in the supermarket?
At the same time, while packaging is often criticized for the waste it creates, less packaging does not necessarily lead to a more sustainable outcome. In fact, it remains one of the most effective tools we have to prevent far more damaging product loss.
Food waste accounts for up to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing it requires packaging that works — even if that packaging itself remains visible and contested. As the first line of defense in ensuring food safety and extending shelf life, industry and policymakers must shift the debate away from simply using less packaging, and towards using the right packaging in the right context.
Regulation requires system readiness
Regulation is essential, but it will fail without system readiness. In Europe, the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) encompasses a series of important and admirable targets and ambitions, including minimum recycling rates. However, regulation alone cannot provide all the answers and recyclability on paper will not deliver outcomes without the corresponding investment in collection, sorting, and reprocessing capacity.
Companies are improving materials and recyclability all the time. At Elopak, our products already score above 95% recyclability, according to current EU standards. However, the absence of adequate recycling infrastructure and markets for recycled goods continues to undermine the effectiveness of these efforts. We therefore urgently need to look at possible solutions, from ring-fenced EU funding for collection and sorting infrastructure, to harmonized landfill and incineration taxes, and the acceleration of secondary legislation on recycled content verification rules. Only when infrastructure, regulation and market incentives align will circularity become real at scale.
What comes next
I remain optimistic: today the more holistic approach to sustainability, increasingly mature regulatory environment, and enhanced design sophistication all give me confidence that the industry is progressing in the right direction. But the next phase will be defined not by statements of ambition, but by execution.
Together with regulators, the packaging industry must help consumers compare options in clear and accessible terms, enable industries to invest with confidence, and ensure regulation is matched by the systems required to make it work in practice. Only then can packaging play its full role in reducing emissions, cutting waste, and supporting a more sustainable economy.
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