Circular Economy Week 2025 arrived not just as a celebration of progress, but as a call to action. As environmental concerns intensify and global regulations evolve, the packaging industry finds itself at a critical inflection point. Businesses, researchers, and policymakers are no longer focused solely on making packaging recyclable—they’re fundamentally rethinking packaging as a resource, not waste.
This year’s summit brought together a powerful cross-section of change-makers who are proving that circularity is not a distant aspiration—it’s an achievable, scalable system grounded in innovation, design, and collaboration.
Collaboration Over Competition: Setting the Tone for Systems Change
The week kicked off with a powerful message: we won’t get to a circular economy through competition alone. In 2024, three certified B Corps—BioPak, Huskee, and Decent Packaging—joined forces to tackle packaging holistically. Compostable, reusable, and recyclable solutions were brought together under one collaborative vision: that no single innovation can solve the waste crisis in isolation.
This coalition is more than a partnership—it’s a blueprint for sector-wide transformation. While policy landscapes shift unpredictably—California’s rollback of SB 54, for instance, sent shockwaves through global packaging circles—business-led collaboration is proving to be a stabilizing force. From extended producer responsibility (EPR) models to voluntary material commitments, these cross-functional alliances allow businesses to build resilience while driving tangible environmental change.
By combining strengths across material formats, these B Corps demonstrated that building a circular economy means connecting the dots between innovation, practicality, and purpose.
Green Up Farm: Cultivating Closed Loops in Food Supply Chains
Green Up Farm offered a compelling case study of what circularity looks like when it’s integrated from the ground up. Operating a hydroponic vertical farming model, the business has closed the loop on both input and output streams. Through a return-and-reuse scheme for plastic trays and boxes, they’ve eliminated unnecessary single-use plastic in distribution.
As their customer base grows, they continue to reinforce these loops by introducing 100% recyclable rPET grow trays, significantly reducing the risk of waste leakage. But their commitment doesn’t stop at packaging. Green Up Farm also collects organic waste from deliveries and redistributes it to a local community garden for composting.
Their collaborative relationships with hospitality clients—built on transparency, education, and trust—demonstrate that circular systems thrive not on transactional business, but on long-term partnerships with shared values.
James Cropper and Pro Carton: Reimagining Fibre-Based Value
As the conversation around materials intensifies, fibre-based packaging emerged as a circular frontrunner. James Cropper’s CupCycling® initiative has diverted over 58 million coffee cups from landfill by transforming them into luxury-grade packaging. Their Rydal Collection, which also incorporates denim and post-consumer paper, proves that “waste” can not only be repurposed—it can become a premium product.
Pro Carton bolstered this message with compelling data from their European Consumer Packaging Perceptions Survey. With 89% of consumers preferring cartonboard over plastic and 84% trusting it to be recycled, fibre-based materials enjoy high public confidence. Unlike plastic, fibre decomposes naturally and can be recycled over 25 times without degradation.
Beyond environmental impact, fibre-based packaging offers real commercial benefits: renewable sourcing, reduced dependence on fossil inputs, low energy use during recycling, and alignment with consumer sentiment. In today’s packaging economy, trust is currency—and fibre is cashing in.
Regulatory Readiness: From Ink Chemistry to Binary Labels
New legislation is rapidly redefining what circular compliance looks like. From the UK’s pEPR and RAM standards to the EU’s PPWR, the message is clear: packaging must be designed for recycling at scale.
OPRL is helping brands prepare with their Recyclability Assessment Tool, which analyses packaging components and offers clear, actionable design guidance. Their push for binary recyclability labels—‘Recycle’ or ‘Do Not Recycle’—aims to reduce consumer confusion and contamination at the bin. With infrastructure already strained, improving what enters the system is key to improving what comes out.
Meanwhile, Dr. Lars Hancke of hubergroup spotlighted a less obvious—but crucial—issue: inks and coatings. Inks that degrade at high temperatures or release volatile compounds during reprocessing can compromise recycling streams. His call to move away from nitrocellulose (NC)-based inks toward deinkable, NC-free solutions aligns with PPWR’s 2030 recyclability targets. Chemical transparency, it turns out, is as vital as material transparency.
Smart Packaging and Digital Traceability: The Rise of Polytag
Polytag is revolutionising how we track packaging across its lifecycle. By embedding QR codes and invisible UV tags onto products, they enable brands to follow every unit from production to disposal, collecting data that supports recycling rates, consumer behaviour analysis, and supply chain transparency.
With GS1’s Sunrise 2027 initiative set to replace traditional barcodes with data-rich QR codes, Polytag is ahead of the curve. Their smart packaging solutions will soon become essential tools for EPR compliance, digital waste tracking, and environmental reporting.
Even more powerful is the consumer interface: scanning a Polytag QR code can deliver real-time disposal instructions, helping reduce contamination and increasing recovery. In a circular economy, data doesn’t just measure impact—it creates it.
Huskee and the Psychology of Reuse
While many businesses focus on the technical side of reuse, Huskee zeroed in on the human one. Their Borrow program eliminates friction from the reuse experience, allowing customers to pick up and return cups seamlessly at partner cafés.
This system tackles the psychological barrier of forgetfulness—removing the need for customers to bring their own cups and instead offering reuse as a default, not an exception. With 14-day return windows and smart drop-off locations, Huskee aligns convenience with circularity.
As co-founder Saxon Wright put it, “If we want to shift consumer habits, reuse has to be as easy—if not easier—than single use.” This insight has broad implications for any reuse model: design the system around the user, not just the material.
Reuseabox: Redefining the Lifecycle of the Cardboard Box
In one of the most accessible and scalable models showcased, Reuseabox made the case for cardboard reuse before recycling. Every year, millions of cardboard boxes are discarded after just one use—despite being perfectly fit for purpose.
By rescuing, redistributing, and resupplying these boxes, Reuseabox helps businesses cut Scope 3 emissions, reduce waste, and save 30–50% on packaging costs. Their Environmental Impact Calculator translates impact into clear equivalents—flights avoided, homes powered, baths filled—making sustainability real and relatable.
Crucially, their model doesn’t require operational overhauls. For most businesses, using reused boxes is as simple as ordering new ones—just with a smaller footprint and a bigger story to tell.
Silvia D’Alesio: Designing for Circularity at Every Level
Few voices blended science, education, and industry insight like Silvia D’Alesio of Politecnico di Milano. Her approach to circular food packaging is as strategic as it is humanistic—balancing safety, performance, and planet in every design brief.
She advocates for ecosystem thinking, where academia and industry co-create value through shared knowledge and open innovation. Her work spans everything from smart packaging made from food waste to digital tools like blockchain and IoT that enhance traceability.
Silvia also emphasized the importance of training the next generation. By embedding Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and simulation modelling into university curricula, she’s preparing designers and engineers to think in systems—not silos. Her work is a powerful reminder that circularity begins in the classroom just as much as in the lab.
Fibre-Based Futures: Consumer Trust Meets Circular Design
Across nearly every session, fibre-based packaging emerged as a material to watch—and to trust. Its recyclability, biodegradability, and renewable sourcing tick all the boxes for modern consumers and regulators alike.
Pro Carton’s data shows that cartonboard has surpassed even glass in consumer confidence, with 84% believing it’s effectively recycled. Its ability to withstand over 25 recycling loops without performance loss, coupled with its use of 90% reused water and 62% renewable energy, makes it not just a circular option—but a leading one.
Fibre also excels in storytelling. Unlike plastic, which often battles perception issues, fibre is seen as natural, tactile, and transparent—qualities that brands can leverage for authentic environmental communication.
Conclusion: From Momentum to Maturity
Circular Economy Week 2025 made one thing abundantly clear: the future of packaging lies not in single solutions, but in integrated systems. From traceable QR codes and regenerative materials to consumer-centric reuse models, the week showcased a sector that’s not just ready to change—but already doing it.
The circular packaging economy is evolving beyond aspiration—it’s maturing into an interconnected ecosystem that rewards collaboration, transparency, and thoughtful design. But to fully unlock this future, we need:
- Aligned regulation that reinforces design for recovery.
- Standardised tools to measure and communicate impact.
- Investment in infrastructure to enable scale.
- Education and upskilling across sectors.
- Cross-sector partnerships that blend innovation with intention.
The shift to circularity is not linear—it’s dynamic, adaptive, and inclusive. It challenges us to think beyond materials and toward systems that regenerate, engage, and perform.
Because in a truly circular economy, the best packaging isn’t just recyclable or reusable—it’s part of something much bigger.
It’s part of the solution.