Sustainable Packaging: is change in the air?

Sustainability is becoming ever more important across all aspects of the economy. Media coverage over recent years has highlighted plastic pollution and brought packaging to the forefront of consumers' as well as corporates' minds.​

BDO’s Strategy and CDD recently conducted a consumer study to understand current and future attitudes to sustainability, recycling, and packaging.  The study has found that businesses are not perceived to be doing enough, with over 90% of respondents concerned about the impact of packaging on the environment.

As a critical element to protect products, drive differentiation and promote brand, businesses must address these issues, especially as the drive for sustainability is only going in one direction.​

In our report we explore the following questions:

• What are the key levers that will help to drive sustainability in the packaging sector?
• What are the innovations driving advances to make packaging more sustainable? 
• How do consumers feel about sustainability, recycling, and packaging, and how could these attitudes shape the sector in the future?

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Making packaging more sustainable ​

BDO’s recent Packaging Sector Insights report detailed a number of areas driving sustainability in the packaging sector. Making packaging sustainable is complex and there are several levers that can and need to be pulled to achieve environmental goals. These include:​

• Government regulations, taxes & incentives to compel companies (and consumers) to invest – in our experience this is still a key factor that drives innovation and/or uptake of newer (initially often more expensive, e.g. mono-films over multi-layer) materials and solutions;​
• Availability of collection and recycling infrastructure – a critical input to make the system work. The UK (and to some extent also wider Europe) has further improvements to make in collection, separation and treatment of waste to ensure that the maximum amount of waste can be fed back into the economy. Investment in more existing and in new types of recycling operations and technologies is necessary; ​
• Corporates need to (continue to) heed the demand for sustainability and invest in R&D to reduce the waste they generate, maximise the use of recyclates and develop new materials. The most innovative companies do not only do all of the above, but also help their customers create closed loops and integrate (or partner) along the value chain; and​
• Consumer attitudes – while a “soft” factor, increasing awareness by and pressure from consumers on the corporate world is driving change. However, for the circular economy to take hold, consumers need to “invest” by making the effort to recycle, reuse and repair items and potentially pay more for the products they purchase.​

Innovation: a wide spectrum of solutions ​

Innovation has been driving significant advances in making packaging more sustainable. Multiple options are available to packaging companies and their customers. ​

These often revolve around improving usage and processes of existing materials, e.g. ​

• replacing substrates with more sustainable materials;​
• downgauging (thereby reducing the amount of packaging); and​
• optimising the use of recycled input materials such as rPET.​

However, they increasingly also mean development of new methods and substrates, e.g. ​

• “improving” existing materials such as PET (e.g. mono-films, which can be recycled, unlike multi-layer packaging, which must be incinerated or sent to landfill); and​
• bio-degradable and compostables – substrates often made from natural materials. ​

All of these are and will increasingly drive differentiation and determine the future of packaging companies and their customers.​ M&A has been and continues to be a key enabler of adding not only geographic reach, new customers, or materials, but increasingly acquiring new capabilities.

Change in the air: how do consumers feel?

Key findings from our study are as follows. 

​For the full report:  
 
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