Strategic learnings from the 2025 Sustainable Packaging Summit

In a rush? Click here to read a short summary of this report

As ever, the 2025 Sustainable Packaging Summit was designed to bring as many key value chain players together as possible – over 900 delegates at final count – in order not only to lament the ongoing and emerging challenges we all face but to discuss possible solutions.

Panel discussions included perspective-shifting keynotes that set the strategic direction of packaging sustainability, including global volatility, the regulatory tsunami, the foundations of a circular economy, fibre, scaling reuse, and circular flexibles. Over and again we asked: what does the end point of the shared journey look like and how do we get there? What decisions should we be making today to ensure we reach that point?

The following is an overview of a few of the key strategic panel discussions at the event and the main points that were raised at these. (For those who are interested, following the report we also list the participants in each panel discussed.)

REGULATORY LEVERS FOR CIRCULARITY

The industry is now fully aware of the ambitious demands set by Europe’s PPWR – and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the circular economy is falling short of this. During a discussion on the European regulatory perspective, our panel looked at the elements that must come into play to accelerate transformation – from harmonization in collection to EPR approaches.

We might also ask the question: is regulation helping or hindering circularity? Or, as our moderator for this session, Bruno von Gompel, put it: “Is regulation steering us toward a repeating loop, a kind of circularity? Or is it preparing to slam us into the stubborn wall of compliance?”

To answer this question, it is necessary to consider not where the industry is succeeding, but where it is failing to deliver and where the regulatory gaps are that allow this discrepancy between ambition and reality.

• Regulatory gap – Collection: The PPWR states that by 2030 at least 70% of the packs placed on the market should be collected, increasing to all the packs put on the market by 2040. At first glance, says Bruno, it might seem as though the industry is almost there – at 67% by current measures.

But the systems to collect packaging waste across Europe are currently highly fragmented and uneven. “When you go into the specifics, for example plastics,” says Bruno, “we are only at 42%. So, yes, packaging can be captured and recycled at higher rates if you happen to be in the right country with the right postcode – but overall, it’s not uniform across the board.” 

What, then, are the possible solutions to this ongoing problem? According to Graham Houlder of CEFLEX, we must do a better job with separate collection. “We’re also going to have to collect from the residual waste streams. Following a compositional analysis we found that even the countries out there, such as Germany, that have been doing this for a long time have only 30% rigid and flexible packaging in the residual waste.”

One issue raised is that it is very difficult to make money with plastic recycling. It is therefore, says Graham, essential that recycling is established as a rewarding, profitable enterprise in Europe as it is unrealistic to hope we can persuade consumers themselves to change their habits enough to bring about a real industry-wide shift.

Finally, according to Joachim Quoden from producer responsibility organization EXPRA, “I do not believe that we should have the same collection throughout Europe. Because you need the most appropriate collection model for your situation. In northern Finland you can collect differently than in the high-density multi-family areas here in Europe, Utrecht or Rotterdam.”

• Extended producer responsibility: Closely related to the above is the need for more homogenized extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes across Europe. At present, says Joachim Quoden, there are 27 distinct solutions at play while there are still countries that have not implemented any system at all. He gives the ‘intriguing’ approach of Hungary as an example, which has assigned a mandate to its own oil company for 35 years to manage every waste stream. Then there are Slovakia and Poland which have publicly announced that they will be dispensing with EPR and pursuing a taxation system instead. 

“How can we talk meaningfully about harmonization if the extremes between sides are continually getting wider and wider? And even within EPR, you have several countries where the system is only permitted to dispense money, for example our French friends, and, on the other hand, other countries where you really hold a firm grip.”

“It becomes clear that maintaining a firm grip on the system is a crucial factor for achieving success. So for me, the initial step would be this: I am sincerely hoping the commission will adopt a somewhat firmer, stricter stance on EPR, because our ability to reach the goals we set for ourselves rests on the existence of a more streamlined, more tightly coordinated, and better organized solution. And then in turn we can have a greater influence on the collection.”

According to Amcor’s Gerald Rebitzer: “I believe the solution lies in adequately structured extended producer responsibility fees, where there is sufficient broad-based support, and that, essentially, these EPR fees, with good eco-modulation, will ensure that there are good quality end-of-life materials available on the market.”

• Recycling capacity: The PPWR calls for a substantial scaling of recycling capability and corresponding capacity throughout the EU. To put this in context, according to Bruno, the target for 2030 is roughly 25% of the total packaging on the market to be composed of PCR but we are currently at 13.5%, so there is a long way to go. Furthermore, legislation decrees that by August 2026 there will be no PFAS present in packaging – or very low levels – but the reality is that many brands have not got a grip on how to address this.

When it comes to meeting the PPWR’s demands for recycling rates and recycled content, Gerald Rebitzer believes that the link between producers and packaging entities to the actual recycling pipeline remains the missing piece to the legislative puzzle.

“Most in the industry are probably familiar with articles 5, 6 and 7 of the PPWR but perhaps fewer are familiar with Article 48, which is presently under review. According to this, packaging which complies with the established design-for-recycling criteria as set out in Article 6 must be collected for recycling, and incineration and landfilling of such packaging shall be absolutely prohibited. So that means that the systems must be in place so that these materials are actually collected and sorted and recycled at the required rates.

“But,” he added, “we do not necessarily see how that can actually be properly enforced, or how to ensure that this is, in fact, happening.

• Access to recyclate: Despite the sense of urgency, it is still the case that throughout Europe recycling facilities are closing, limiting access to recyclate. While it is of course preferable to have a closed loop for recyclate in the EU, currently it is therefore much easier to obtain post-consumer recycled-content material from outside Europe, specifically from Asia. 

Put all this against the backdrop of a ban on exporting plastic waste to non-OECD countries and the imperative to ensure there is capacity for European plastic waste to be recycled into new, usable products becomes clearer.

On a positive note, Michelle Norman of Suntory Beverage & Food Europe emphasized that deposit return systems for beverage packs will be mandatory by 2029. “We are truly pleased that the minimum requirements noted rights of preferential access. However, we are still competing with the textile industry, with the automotive industry, for that high-quality, food-contact safe material that is collected in a deposit-return system, which we rightly paid for in the first place; we would like to be able to put it back into our bottles.”

• Concluding takeaways: So what do we need from regulators in order to foster – not hinder – progress? Wolfgang Trunk stresses the need to ‘move from defensive postures to offensive strategies’ – for example in the aforementioned PFAS restrictions, which may encourage brand owners and fillers etc to buy from European recyclers as opposed to global.

Furthermore, according to Michelle Norman, “the devil is in the detail.

“I’ll give you a precise example. There are 1500 bottling lines spread across Europe, all of which must be changed completely. The equipment has been thoroughly assessed, installed, and the gaskets have been redesigned. We will not do that 2030 part, at this stage. The industry will clearly fail, because the regulation is not yet ready. So that’s a very specific example of where every duck must be in a row, and the ducks must move a lot faster.”

BUILDING A SINGLE MARKET FOR RECYCLING

2025 has seen the greatest rise in global tariffs since the onset of the globalization era. Meanwhile, the European plastic recycling industry is in recession with many facilities closing their doors, and recyclers are calling for regulatory protection from what they view as market dumping of materials lacking a transparent chain of custody.

In our panel on this topic at the Sustainable Packaging Summit participants explored the market conditions shaping recycling in 2025, identified what is blocking a true Single Market for Recycled Materials, and discussed practical measures to enable a competitive circular economy in Europe with global linkages.

The panel focused on four key challenges and how these can be approached.

• Insufficient, inconsistent collection infrastructure: To give an idea of the scale of the challenge: there are 27 different producer responsibility organizations across Europe – 342 local municipalities in the Netherlands alone, for example. On the plus side, success stories mentioned, where countries have really got to grips with collection, include the Netherlands and Belgium (the latter with recycling rates of over 50%); while France, on the other hand, to name just one, is still lagging, with recycling rates of a little more than 25%.

The cost of EPR was discussed in this context. The discrepancy in recycling rates between Belgium and France exists even though the cost of EPR per person is still almost the same. The need for more transparency when it comes to EPR was therefore discussed: as producers are challenged on how much recycled content they are using, they should also be challenged on how well they perform and what they do with the money.

There was some disagreement as to how much responsibility the consumer bears. It is true that consumer education must be ramped up as packaging is often still not disposed of in the right places, but, as Feliks Bezati from Mars noted: “I don’t think consumers are to be blamed.

“We must make the system more efficient to start with; even in places like the Netherlands methods of selection will vary so a major challenge for harmonization is to make the lives of consumers easier.

Finally, one practical solution we have seen increasing across Europe is long-term partnerships between producers and recyclers to create ‘highly specialized sorting centres’ paving the way towards higher investments for the recycling of specific waste streams that have not typically been recycled – such as separating recycling of PS from polyolefins to create higher yields of this material for recyclers to invest in.

• Rising energy prices undermining recycled vs virgin plastic: The cost of recycled materials in Europe – with all the accompanying collection and sorting operations that go along with these – is still much higher than virgin.

But this is not just the case in Europe, said Curt Cozart from the Association of Plastics Recyclers (APR): “In the US, while the average energy cost is about half of the industrial price in Europe, it varies: California has almost the same price as Europe and then in the south-east, where we have a lot of our recycling plants, it is down to a quarter of that, even.”

In the US, electricity can make up between 20-40% of a recycler’s total cost, so like in Europe the country is seeing recycling plants failing, particularly in states like California. One solution APR has suggested is to ask legislators in those high-cost states to provide incentives for recycling – “and it seems to be working”, says Curt. Incentivization of the recycling industry in Europe, such as through eco-modulation, should also, perhaps, be part of the strategic roadmap for decarbonization strategies. For example, making it part of the state aid policies published in 2025 under the European Commission’s Clean Industrial Deal.

• Weak/volatile demand for PCR: Weak demand for Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) plastics in Europe is driven by cheap imports, the above mentioned high energy costs, and stagnant growth, which is leading to facility closures and reduced capacity.

Cost will continue to be a major factor in demand, said Mireia Boada of Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE). “To recycle more, we’ll have to pay more – especially for flexible packaging, for example. But the question is now, by 2030 is the cost of my recycled flexible packaging going to be cheap enough that continue using it or invest in another material?”

The task is to make demand bankable even when virgin material is cheaper, and for brand owners in particular to create value using PCR. Members of the panel felt it is important for the industry to treat virgin and recycled materials as separate business models with different streams, rather than focusing solely on cost. Recyclers are a business and they have to have supply and demand. Rather than talk about cost, we should perhaps be talking about value creation.

The publication in 2025 of the French decree for the use of recycled plastics was mentioned as a positive measure to increase the use of recyclate in Europe. But the panel was in agreement that European industry now also needs to take responsibility for increasing demand and building value into PCR.

• Unfair competition with virgin and imported plastics: ‘Dumping’ and quality undercutting – both of these things are putting unfair pressures on Europe’s PCR market. What is the most effective, WTO-compatible way to address these without stifling global trade in legitimate recyclate?

More transparency is the first point. There is currently no way to trace how many recycled plastics are being imported into Europe because they share the same CN code as virgin materials. Separate CN codes, therefore, would be a good first step.

It’s also important that equal rules and principles should apply to imports as apply to EU-manufactured materials. The PPWR ‘Mirror Clause’, which ensures that PCR imported into the EU for packaging counts towards mandatory recycled content only if it meets the same strict environmental, emission and quality standards as EU sourced PCE, is expected to be adopted by the end of 2026 and should help to create a more level playing field.

SCALING AND IMPLEMENTING REUSE

The PPWR and other regulatory mandates are increasingly compelling brands to move away from single-use formats to reusable, where possible. Yet despite the potential for reuse, interest appears to have waned to some extent and much activity is still confined to pilots or niche applications. Our panel on this subject at the Summit looked at why this is, as well as some of the most successful projects that have been implemented.

• Scaling strategy & opportunities: According to panellist Tom Donen from Eunomia, what is needed is – quite simply – a “completely new ecosystem of packaging.

“I think that’s something people may have underestimated when taking the journey towards reuse. Basically it took us 50 years or more to implement the dominant single-use system and we’ve optimized it. We need to shift back to that kind of scale for reuse systems. We have proof that they work, but now we need the impetus.” What we need is the same kind of effort and investment into optimizing reuse and creating a real infrastructure (although hopefully in a much shorter time-scale).

Is it about changing consumer behaviour? No, says Dagny Tucker of Perpetual, “It’s a design problem. If we’re designing good systems, people embrace them. So the real challenge is to help everybody get on board through collaboration. Is this through shared packaging? Pooled packaging? In which case how do you also ensure brand can differentiate themselves? (Clearly there will be a premium for bespoke packaging, although standardized formats with bespoke labels are a viable solution.)

• Which models have proven to work for consumers? Situations in which reuse has proven to work well include contained environments like festivals or footballs stadiums. There have been successful case studies in Germany with returnable containers for takeaway food, while Loop is now at industrial scale in France through Carrefour which has embraced a prefill model. We also heard this year that nine of the UK’s biggest retailers are also looking to adopt a similar model.

In addition to the above, we are seeing more and more uptake of beverage refill models, such as in the Netherlands where reusable coffee cups at railways stations are increasingly the norm.

There is also some suggestion that curbside returns, as opposed to refill in store etc., may be more scalable long-term owing to the convenience for consumers. To give just one example, Dagny mentioned a pilot in Berkeley, California which offered curbside collection for reusables.

“One surprise to come out of that pilot was that, even though it included glass as a returnable material there was very little breakage.”

• Legislation and EPR: While we are seeing ‘pockets’ of legislation coming down the line – such as the provisions for takeaway, beverage and e-commerce packaging in the PPWR – there is nothing in place to really ‘force’ the issue to the extent needed to achieve the industry-wide shift mentioned above.

So how can we get ahead of the legislation slowly trickling down the track, and design and build for success? “I would say that all EPR should be coupled with reuse,” says Dagny Tucker. “At the moment we’ve seen how in some places EPR is actually disincentivizing reuse so I think it’s imperative legislators really address this. Producers should be getting credit for these reusable items.”

• The business case for reuse: Putting aside all the other drawbacks to reuse, whether that is consumer reluctance, hygiene problems or infrastructural issues, there is another challenge left: cost. It’s clear why this is a preoccupation – reuse is much cheaper once it is scaled but at the same time we know that in the current situation the influx of virgin material is so cheap that it’s hard for reuse to compete. 

How, then, does reuse become a real business prospect – or should we be thinking in these terms at all?

Perhaps not, according to Dagny: “When you start looking from a business case perspective or who’s gaining in the chain and who’s losing, then you immediately start to become ‘opposites’ of each other when in this area it’s really imperative to work together as value chain partners. Really it’s should be able, how do we all move together?”

• Harnessing data: We all know that data sharing is essential. When a reuse trial or system is put in place, one of the first things to be considered is how data will be shared. This can be a simple enough task when there is only one brand or retailer involved, but when you want to scale across brands and supply chains it becomes a much more complex proposition.

Data is also, said Tom, a real opportunity for brands which may be overlooked. “When you have a tech-enabled pack then, as a brand, you can understand your product life cycle so much better. You could understand how long people keep their packaging, how fast their eat their peanut butter, how fast they drink their beverages…I don’t think this gets spoken about enough in conversations about the opportunities for reuse.”

CIRCULAR FLEXIBLES

Across many regions of the world, flexibles are the least likely category of packaging waste to be collected or recycled – but at the same time, they’re an essential packaging format and one whose use will only increase. The Circular Flexibles panel at the Summit looked at the challenges and pillars of a circular economy for flexibles, reviewing in particular the progress of the landmark CEFLEX consortium.

What were the relatively easy wins, what are the pain points, and what are lessons that other regions can apply?

• Progress and gaps in design for recycling (D4R): According to panellist Fabrizio Di Gregorio of Plastics Recyclers Europe, “Even though there is some standardization in progress, we still live with intensive fragmentation of rules and design criteria across Europe. Yet, particularly for plastic packaging, the right design is crucial to ensure that the feedstock that recyclers are receiving and processing daily will be turned into high quality recycled material.”

Because recyclability criteria and PCR content will be mandatory under the PPWR, he argued that design criteria and recycled content should be intrinsically linked when a brand is thinking about incorporating flexibles. “Otherwise, the design will be disconnected from the quality of recycled plastics.”

• Enabling availability and affordability of recycled flexibles: According to Dana Mosora, representative from CEFLEX, over 8 million tonnes of capacity will be needed to ensure a circular economy for flexibles in Europe alone. This means, she says, that Europe will have to invest in over 1 million tonnes of recycling capacity to be built each between now and 2030. This challenge is of course compounded by the fact that – as we have noted earlier – recycling facilities are closing throughout Europe.

In addition to increasing volumes, Dana also stressed the need to diversify the kinds of technologies used in order to improve the quality of recyclate at the same time. She highlighted a study published by CEFLEX on the variety of technologies available to Europe and their relative benefits.

• Addressing the collection and sorting challenge: Despite steadily increasing capacity, there is a disconnect in that flexibles are still not widely collected and, when they are, they are often not properly sorted.

The positive news is that, while plants are shutting down, recyclers are also investing in the kinds of technologies we have already discussed – most recently, in November 2025 Tomra announced the opening of Områ, Norway’s new national facility for sorting all types of plastic packaging waste - including plastic that previously had no other option than to go to incineration.

The importance of advanced sorting for circular flexibles – such as through the Holy Grail project – must also be mentioned. According to Dana Mosora, “The Holy Grail is a critically important project for us here in Europe because the work we’ve done at CEFLEX has identified a clear need for very precise sorting which means changing the way sorting is done at the granular level.”

But the need for granular sorting can only be met with technologies which can understand their characteristics at the granular level.

“We are now seeing a clear need for smart sorting to become commercially available and all this will have to start to happen now because to bring these technologies to a reliable commercial scale we need to learn how to run them. It’ll take time, and this is limited.”

• Future priorities: Our panellists were asked to sum up how we can accelerate the circular flexibles – and what are the strengths to build upon.

Richard Akkermans of Mondelez International pointed to the need to ringfence EPR, whereby the fees collected from these schemes can be dedicating to funding the infrastructure needed to collect, sort and recycle flexibles.

Fabrizio emphasized the need to consider cost above all, putting it frankly: “Forget about sustainability. Sustainability is a philosophy. Circular plastics is an economy, so we should be talking more practically about money, investment costs and so on. I understand that everyone is looking for technological silver bullets, but all these technologies come with a huge price tag.

“At the end of the day, what are you willing to pay for a recycled plastic? Six times the price of virgin plastic? That’s the question, because that’s the reality today.”

Finally, PepsiCo’s Dominica Maruszak-Dankbaar raised the inevitable topic of food contact. “From a brand owner who produces only food contact packaging, the existing capacities to generate food contact recyclables are just simply not there in Europe. For me, this is one of the critical elements to accelerate circular flexibles and maybe also stabilize pricing.

STRATEGIC LEARNINGS FROM PAPER

Innovation is both pushing the functional boundaries of fibre-based packaging and addressing the environmental footprint of the production of paper and board. But what strategic questions does this raise, and what is the impact of the paperization trend on the availability of feedstocks?

Panellists in this session addressed the common perception that paper cannot compete with plastics in terms of physical properties. It looked at how we can reduce the environmental footprint of paper and board production, while tackling concerns about high carbon emissions and deforestation.

• Overview of challenges: Within PPWR, a lot of focus is on plastic materials. As an alternative, many companies are exploring the option to move to renewable materials like bioplastics or papers. And this involves a few challenges:

According to Caroline Zwart-Clarijs from Friesland Campina: “Paper is a different material compared to plastics in relation to barriers, moisture, water resistance etc. So to be able to have a similar solution, paper alone is not enough. Some chemical components like thin plastic layers or coatings are used to achieve this functionality. Technically this is feasible in most cases, but then the first challenge becomes how to explain to the consumer which pack should into which recycling stream.”

Another challenge is that the carbon footprint of a similar format made from paper compared to plastics is quite often higher. For instance, a multi-pack shrink wrap made from plastic has a lower carbon footprint then the same multipack made from paper. This has consequences for the SBTI commitments to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees.

• Functional limitations of paper: The above gives an idea of what paper is – and may be – capable of. But how far can we go in terms of that innovation, and how far can paper replace plastics? View from the panellists included:

Lisa Clark, Archroma Packaging Technologies: “The limitations are only that paper is not plastic; it requires chemistry & substrate optimization to perform similarly to plastic. Yes, there are some applications that present greater challenge for paper – but I believe there are too many smart people working on solving the technical hurdles not to overcome these challenges.”

Oliver Kalmes, Actega: “The challenge? Cost. As long as virgin plastic is much cheaper than recycled plastic combined with water-based barriers, customers hesitate to pay the premium. That’s why collaboration across the value chain is critical – because recyclable solutions that conserve resources are the best way forward.”

• End-of-life scenarios: For Laura Smith and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the question was: how could paper potentially improve end-of-life outcomes for small format flexibles? “We do think that in certain scenarios, under certain conditions, if designed in the right way, paper could really play a role in tackling plastic pollution. When it comes to recycling, you’ll often hear paper is the most widely recycled material, but that depends on how the paper is designed and what you’re comparing it to. 

“If we continue in business as usual we are looking at 20 trillion flexible plastic items in the ocean by 2040. Paper alone is unfortunately not going to solve that challenge. It is not really more valuable to a waste collector in these markets relying on informal collection than plastic, but it has the potential to be a really important safety net. If it’s designed to be fully biodegradable – and that includes biodegradable inks and adhesives – across environments and compostable, then it can avoid the persistent plastic pollution that’s caused by, plastic flexibles, that are leaking.”

Another end-of-life scenario relates to landfill; a lot of paper in markets with high rates of waste mismanagement can end up in unmanaged landfills and release methane, which, according to Laura, can double the overall cradle to grave emissions scenario. So that is another important consideration when choosing packaging materials.

In short, the industry must take a holistic approach, said Lisa: “If you wait until the end of the line to just apply a bio-based coating, you’ve missed a lot of opportunity in the full package design because there’s a lot of chemistry that goes into making the paper functional.”

• Achieving a balance between functionality, cost and sustainability: Overall, a key challenge with paper is about finding the balance between lowering the carbon footprint, providing a packaging that delivers the consumer and customer needs and making sure it will not pollute. What does this mean in practice?

According to Oliver Kalmes, “We believe that different functional water-based barriers can replace rigid plastic films in certain applications, offering the advantage of better recyclability. At the same time, there are areas where the packaging industry should work together to develop the most sustainable and recyclable solution—even if that means using a 100% fossil-based plastic film, provided we can ensure full recycling of the product.”

Lisa added: “Perhaps focus on the importance of understanding end customer/brand requirements early in the process and determine where tradeoffs can be made, if required. Do specs that suffice for non-environmentally friendly incumbents have any room for movement – if cost is competitive, and you could achieve sustainability goals but the performance is 5% less – is that an acceptable solution?

“Likewise, if performance is equal or better with sustainable product, but cost were 5-10% more, what is likelihood of adoption? I think many companies say they want to be sustainable, but I’m not sure how many are willing to make changes to achieve it.”

SUMMING UP

As always, when we look at the strategic questions addressed at the Summit – and the above is unfortunately just a small sample of the huge range of discussions and subtopics our speakers covered – we can see there are many roadblocks or priorities that occur again and again. The need for wider implementation of EPR; the challenge of meeting PPWR demands; the dearth of good-quality recyclate; rising energy prices - all these things affect the entire industry and it was great to see so many different facets of the value chain come together to join the dots.

To close the summit, our very own Tim Sykes and Olga Kachook from our partners the Sustainable Packaging Coalition attempted to sum up the general feeling gleaned over the three days.

The need for simplification in a complex world

It is maybe hard to identify the ‘biggest’ challenge, but one issue Olga said she encountered again and again when speaking with delegates was that of overwhelm: how do you choose the right format for a given situation?

“Maybe it’s not as complicated as we’ve been making it. My vision is a kind of simplified future. When you sit down and look at your portfolio, you really only have a handful of options that make sense for different categories. Reuse doesn’t make sense for everything. Compostable packaging doesn’t make sense for everything. But in some cases either of these things make extreme sense. With beverage containers, clearly reuse is going to be the way you hit your reduction targets for PPWR. It’s the easiest, and it’s the one where we’ve made the most progress.

“For snacks, chips, confectionery – that’s where we’re talking more about recyclable paper solutions. For many food applications, on the other hand, compostability makes a lot of sense.

In short: there is a clear way in which the industry can align on certain solutions making sense for specific categories and everybody can move in the same direction.

Overall feelings about the opportunities ahead

When we polled our audience on their feelings about the future of sustainable packaging ahead, while there was an acknowledgement of the challenges ahead with words like ‘complex’ and ‘ambiguous’ making an appearance, there was also – perhaps surprisingly but in a good way – a certain amount of optimism.

Olga addressed this: “We’ve talked at the packaging design level. We’ve also talked at the systems level. A lot of those conversations about, the systems needed for reuse, the broader context of, competitiveness for PPWR. Those are really big systems questions, but we’ve also been talking about materials, about sourcing, about packaging. We have all of the solutions, sand now we just need to deploy the right solutions for the right context.”

Tim Sykes ended with his firm belief that collaborative platforms such as the Sustainable Packaging Europe of Sustainable Packaging Coalition can support industry in driving progress faster.

“At this event alone we’ve had two outstanding examples of how we can make collaboration more effective: the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, which is mobilizing the value chain primarily in North America by creating specific working groups; and the Holy Grail 2030 Consortium, which is working on the challenge of advanced sorting.

“We need to think about areas where we can build these kinds of pre-competitive value chain collaborations to tackle the many challenges we need to address as an industry.”

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

If you liked this story, you might also enjoy:

The ultimate guide to the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation in 2025

How are the top brands progressing on packaging sustainability?

Everything you need to know about global packaging sustainability regulation in 2025

The key to increasing the use of reusable packaging in supermarkets