Packaging today has to be more versatile than ever.
Every pack has to protect products, reduce waste, support sustainability claims, comply with changing regulations, reassure consumers, meet retailer expectations, and perform in today’s supply chains. And it must do it while managing cost, availability, brand impact, and operational efficiency.
These should not be treated as separate boxes to be ticked, but as cogs in an interconnected mechanism. Each issue might be of differing size and complexity, but if one fails, so does the entire project. A decision made for recyclability can influence product protection. A material change can affect Scope 3 emissions. A compliance update can create new questions around consumer communication. A design choice made for shelf appeal can determine whether a pack can be collected, sorted, and recycled in the system it actually enters. No packaging design decision can be made in isolation.
This means the industry needs to change the way it thinks about packaging innovation. It needs to move that innovation upstream.
From fragmented to fluid
Traditionally, packaging design decisions follow a linear pattern. First choose the material, then develop the structure, check the performance, review the cost, and assess compliance at the end. That approach may have worked when sustainability and regulation were treated as additional considerations, but in a market transformed by regulations, it’s no longer enough.
This transformation has arrived as a flood rather than a trickle. In the EU alone, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) are bringing in sweeping changes over a relatively short period of time. How they interact with extended producer responsibility (EPR) reforms that are already in place in several countries – and, in many cases, which are still evolving – remains to be seen.
Add in new standards around Scope 3 emission reporting, legislation around environmental claims, and material availability issues in the supply chain, and even the most adaptable businesses will face unprecedented packaging design challenges over the next few years.
Packaging systems, especially the advanced systems required to meet today’s market demands, cannot be designed overnight. Innovation pipelines beginning today may not deliver results until the end of the decade. By 2030, PPWR will require packaging to meet design-for-recycling requirements. From 2035, packaging will also need to meet the recycled-at-scale requirements, taking account of whether it can be collected, sorted and recycled through real waste-management systems.
Packaging can no longer be optimised in fragments because the future of packaging is fluid, and the response from the industry has to match.
Real recycling matters more than theoretical claims
This demands more than investment in new materials and machinery. Circularity is a system issue, not a material claim. A pack is only really circular if it is designed for the recycling process, collected through the right route, sorted effectively, and recycled into usable material. That real-world outcome is crucial, as theoretically recyclable packaging counts for nothing when it comes to compliance and sustainability data.
Fibre-based packaging has a strong platform, with established recycling performance and a cross-industry ambition to reach a 90% recycling rate by 2030[1]. However, progress depends on more than selecting fibre as a material. It depends on coatings, inks, adhesives, barriers, pack construction, collection routes, sorting behaviour, and the technical realities of recycling infrastructure – both as it exists today, and as it will exist tomorrow.
That is why material choice must be application-led. Both virgin and recycled fibres have a role in a functioning fibre-based packaging system. The right answer depends on the product, protection requirements, regulatory context, supply chain conditions, and end-of-life route. Simplistic recycled-versus-virgin arguments risk missing the more important point: Packaging must use the right fibre, in the right structure, for the right application.
Balancing sustainability and function
Functionality cannot be separated from sustainability. A recyclable pack that fails to protect the product is not sustainable. Product damage, food waste, inefficient packing, poor machinability, or weak shelf communication can all undermine the environmental and commercial purpose of the packaging. Pack design has to balance appearance, sustainability, and function, including product protection, manufacturing efficiency, packing performance, and consumer use.
This is where collaboration needs to move upstream, where it can be built into the very first steps of a project.
Conversations around fibre expertise, packaging design, material science, technical performance, sustainability data, regulatory understanding, application knowledge, and end-of-life thinking need to be held earlier in the process. That’s because they shouldn’t be held in separate rooms, taking place one after the other as a product develops. They need to be foundational to the brief, informing every step of the process from the very beginning.
At MM Group, we have first-hand experience of the benefits of this approach. The connection between MM Board & Paper and MM Packaging links substrate knowledge with finished packaging application expertise, so customers can evaluate packaging decisions more holistically. Board performance, converting behaviour, structural design, regulatory requirements, recyclability, and brand presentation can be considered together as part of a single clear vision, rather than being corrected and overwritten later.
Building strategic resilience from day one
This kind of joined-up perspective is particularly useful in today’s packaging market, because many of the challenges facing brands cannot be overcome using a single discipline. A brand may need to reduce material weight without compromising stiffness, or it may need to improve recyclability while maintaining barrier performance. It may need to back up sustainability claims while protecting brand appeal. It may need to manage limited fibre availability while meeting product-specific demands. It may face entirely new challenges that cannot be foreseen yet, while legislation is still evolving.
The challenges are impacting upstream, so this is where the packaging industry must focus its attention. Early collaboration helps identify where change is needed, where existing solutions can be optimised, and where innovation must be developed around the realities of production, regulation, and end-of-life systems. It reduces the risk of late-stage redesign, fragmented decision-making, and unintended consequences.
Reactive compliance is a thing of the past. Strategic resilience is the future and this begins in the first conversation.
[1] https://4evergreenforum.eu/about/guidance-on-the-improved-collection-and-sorting/
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