Sustainability
Although sustainable packaging is widely discussed at conferences and in the packaging media, there is no consensus as to what it is. Many in the packaging industry are confused; consumers are also very confused and the potential exists for unscrupulous companies to market packages as ‘sustainable’ when they are not and thus mislead consumers. However, a single definition of sustainable packaging is unfeasible, as the sustainability of a packaging material intrinsically depends on aspects specific to its life cycle, such as its manufacturing process, the length of its supply chain, its use and finally its disposal options. Many professionals would even argue that there is no such thing as ‘sustainable packaging’. Rather there are improvements that can be made to the packaging’s attributes and its manufacturing process in order to reduce its life cycle impacts and improve the efficiency of the supply chain. This was confirmed in the conclusions to a 2012 report from PwC [1] which found that sustainable packaging was no longer a relevant term today as it is too broad to be useful at a practical level. Furthermore, no one can come up with a single meaningful definition of sustainable packaging. As a consequence, sustainable packaging has been substituted with a more balanced view of efficient packaging: minimum resources, minimising product waste, transport and display efficiency and effective after-use disposal and recycling. UK-based INCPEN defines a sustainable packaging and product supply chain as a system that enables goods to be produced, distributed, used and recovered with minimum environmental impact at lowest social and economic cost.