In the European Union, packaging accounts for over a third (36%) of municipal waste, with the recycling rate reaching 65%. This highlights the significance of enhancing the circularity of packaging, which can be achieved through the designing of packaging for recycling and promoting education on this matter among many other measures. In part, that need prompted the European Commission to introduce the proposal for Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) in late 2022 to help clear a path to a more circular economy. It is one of the most wide-ranging pieces of legislation about packaging with certain action needed now to ensure compliance. Mandates cover areas such as recyclability, recycled plastic content minimums, reducing packaging weight and volume, reuse targets and packaging restrictions.
What does this mean for brand owners specifically, and what do they need to do to ensure compliance?
Key components
The PPWR is broad in its stipulations, but there are a few specific areas brand owners should have front of mind. The first area introduces new mandates for the recyclability of packaging materials by 2030 and then expands these to ensure these materials are suitable for collection and recycling at scale. There are also new rules on recycled plastic content minimums, which start between 10% and 35% by 2030 depending on the plastic type and packaging format, leaps up to between 25% and 65% by 2040, with some exceptions to the rules for plastic share of less than 5% and compostable plastics.
Furthermore, brand owners need to be aware of provisions of the PPWR that aim to minimize packaging weight and volume and establish binding reuse targets by 2030. And from 2030, transport and sales packaging for transport of products within the EU will be required to be fully reusable in certain specific business-to-business cases. There are exemptions to the reuse rules for transport packaging for cardboard boxes given its sustainability credentials. The mandates for brand owners in the short-term are potentially manageable, but requirements accelerate quickly in the following years, so action is needed now to ensure a sustainable business in the longer-term.
Most agree it is important to have targets, but what is the most effective route to meeting them in practice? Brand owners need to know how to improve the recyclability of their products and then how they can support consumers in choosing those more sustainable options.
Collaboration is key to compliance
Brand owners have a number of ever-evolving regulatory developments to stay on top of, which is difficult to do without support. Collaboration is vital to helping with informed decisions about the best way to navigate these demands and ensure a smooth transition to a circular economy in a way that takes into account cost pressures and consumer expectations.
Industry bodies, such as 4evergreen, have a range of resources to help with informed decision-making on packaging materials. In addition to those industry bodies, brand owners should task their suppliers with stepping up to the challenge of being a truly supportive and cost-effective partner. These suppliers often have deep pools of data, sophisticated measurement tools, and decades of expertise that can provide unique insights on everything from extended producer responsibility fees to the carbon footprint associated with different forms of packaging.
Brand owners should also take advantage of opportunities to train non-specialist staff whose roles touch on sustainability, which could include sales, sourcing and product management. These teams need to understand the implications of PPWR, because that should be a factor in cross-departmental decision-making for successful compliance and progress towards more circular packaging. Then, brand owners will be in a stronger position to help their own customers with sustainable decision-making.
Consumer knowledge is power
PPWR helps increase the sustainability of packaging through a shift to renewable and recyclable packaging materials, but pushing recycling rates higher must be supported by consumer choices and actions. When surveyed, consumers are strongly in favour of recycling; in fact, 84% say recycling is ‘extremely important’. In practice, however, the average EU citizen generated 188.7kg of packaging waste per inhabitant in 2021, with only 65% of that figure recycled. Therefore, the success of PPWR depends on brands helping consumers with clear instructions about how to make those environmentally desirable decisions, and it relies on state provision of accessible collection and sorting infrastructure that gives consumers the option to act on those decisions.
That's a wrap
New regulation can be a boon rather than a burden for brand owners, but it relies on the right guidance at the right time. With the PPWR about to come into force, it’s more important than ever that companies move towards more sustainable packaging and combine that with the information that enables consumers to make the best decisions. This way, brand owners can be compliant with the regulation and put themselves in the strongest position to achieve circularity.