Sustainability has become a major factor in procurement decisions in recent years. Across facilities management, hospitality, healthcare and education, buyers are under growing pressure to cut waste, improve reporting and show genuine environmental progress.
The challenge, however, is that sustainability claims are becoming harder to assess. Buyers are being bombarded with products labelled recyclable, biodegradable or eco-friendly, but those claims often fall apart in practice.
A product may technically be recyclable, yet still fail to be recycled in practice. Disposal infrastructure differs across the UK and contamination remains a huge issue, with recyclable waste often mixed with food residue or incompatible materials. Some packaging simply cannot be processed through standard waste streams in the way businesses assume it can.
The Competition and Markets Authority’s Green Claims Code has raised expectations around environmental marketing, while Extended Producer Responsibility legislation is increasing pressure on producers to take responsibility for packaging waste. Simpler Recycling reforms are also forcing businesses to rethink waste separation and disposal.
Businesses therefore need to look beyond headline claims and examine how packaging actually performs in real-world commercial waste systems.
Why recyclable does not always mean recycled
Environmental claims can be technically accurate while still being misleading in practice. Packaging marketed as compostable may require industrial composting facilities that many businesses simply don’t have access to. A product labelled recyclable can still end up as waste because of mixed materials, contamination or inconsistent local collection systems. Even packaging changes that look positive at first glance can create knock-on problems elsewhere.
Concentrated products supplied in smaller formats can reduce transport emissions and cut packaging waste over time, while lightweight packaging can help reduce emissions across supply chains. Yet switching materials without considering disposal can create new environmental issues further down the line.
Defra figures published in 2025 showed that 64.1% of UK packaging waste was recycled in 2024, although performance still varies depending on the material. Paper and cardboard continue to achieve relatively high recycling rates, but plastics remain far more difficult to process consistently.
For buyers, that gap between what packaging is designed to do and what actually happens to it after disposal is becoming much harder to ignore.
Looking beyond surface-level sustainability claims
It’s easy to see how buyers get caught out. A product might contain recycled material or use less plastic, but that says very little about the wider environmental impact if manufacturing, transport or disposal haven’t been considered properly. The same applies to carbon-neutral claims. In some cases, businesses are still relying heavily on offsetting rather than making meaningful reductions to emissions in the first place.
In the cleaning and hygiene sector especially, there is still very little consistency around environmental terminology and claims. Terms like green, eco-friendly and sustainable are used constantly, often without much explanation or independent verification. That makes it harder for procurement teams to compare products properly or assess whether claims reflect real environmental outcomes.
To strengthen procurement decisions, buyers need to be clearer about the evidence they expect suppliers to provide. That includes independently verified certifications, recyclability guidance and lifecycle data that reflects real commercial conditions. Frameworks such as EU Ecolabel, Cradle to Cradle, Nordic Swan, Global Green Tag, FSC and PEFC, can all help procurement teams assess products against recognised standards instead of relying on broad marketing language.
Suppliers should also be able to provide clear disposal guidance, sourcing information and transparent data around how packaging performs within existing waste systems. In some cases, procurement teams may also need to review whether packaging can realistically be processed through their current waste contracts before products are approved in the first place.
Procurement’s role in driving genuine sustainability
Buying decisions now carry far more weight than they used to. Procurement teams influence supply chains, operational standards and environmental outcomes every day, particularly in sectors where packaging waste and product usage volumes are high.
Buyers are under pressure to move quickly on sustainability, but quick wins and marketing claims might not tell the full story. The businesses making genuine progress are the ones asking questions, challenging vague claims and looking closely at what actually happens once a product leaves the shelf.
Packaging that appears sustainable on paper does not always deliver the environmental outcome businesses expect in practice. For procurement teams, recognising that gap is critical.