A report from The Consumer Goods Forum’s Plastic Waste Coalition of Action asserts that artificial intelligence can help companies generate and optimize packaging design, sort waste effectively, and trace materials throughout the supply chain.
The report – Exploring AI for Packaging Circularity, developed alongside Bain & Company – uses market analysis, case study data, and expert interviews with members of The Consumer Goods Forum to highlight four ‘advanced and actionable’ use cases for artificial intelligence.
These include optimized and generative packaging design, with 70% of companies asserting that AI can have the biggest impact in the design of plastic products. Advanced sorting and material traceability are also highlighted, as 40% of respondents claim that AI can help identify where and why materials are lost across the value chain.
Apparently, 30% of companies are already using AI somewhere in the life cycle of their packaging. Applications range from material reduction in the design stage to improving sorting quality at end-of-life.
The report also identifies five ‘pain points’ holding businesses back from scaling up their packaging solutions. These include technical limitations on new packaging materials; ensuring that portfolios are recyclable and recycled in practice; accessing and using more recycled content; establishing refillable and reusable packaging systems; and undertaking the required reporting and gathering accurate data to stay up to date with regulations.
“Packaging circularity requires a step change, and AI can be a powerful tool to help unlock it,” said Cedric Dever, managing director of Plastic Waste at The Consumer Goods Forum. “This paper provides a practical, industry-informed view of where AI is already delivering value today and where collaboration across the value chain will be critical to scale solutions that can truly move the needle.”
Magali Deryckere, Partner at Bain & Co, continued: “AI has proven its ability to drive efficiency and innovation across industries. Packaging circularity is uniquely intricate, requiring trade-offs across recyclability, convenience, carbon performance, safety, and multiple stakeholder needs.
“For challenges with this level of complexity, AI can significantly accelerate the path to viable solutions.”
“AI will not solve packaging circularity on its own, but used in the right way, it can significantly accelerate progress,” added Mario Abreu, chief sustainability officer at Ferrero and Co-Chair of the Plastic Waste Coalition of Action. “This paper helps demystify where to start and how industry players can work together to turn potential into impact.”
Late last year, we published our own report diving deeper into the use of artificial intelligence to design polymers to suit an increasingly sustainability-minded market. It explored AI’s predictive elements, its potential to accelerate time-to-market, its benefits for cross-disciplinary expertise, and more.
A recent edition of the Brief also weighed up the pros and cons of using artificial intelligence to retrieve plastic waste from the ocean. Companies are starting to use AI to track plastic pollution hotspots without relying on dedicated ships, but the environmental implications of AI hardware and data centres have come into question.
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