Discover your next big idea at PACK EXPO Las Vegas this September
Experience a breakthrough in packaging & processing and transform your business with solutions from 2,300 suppliers spanning all industries.
REGISTER NOW & SAVE

Is global standardization essential to sustainable packaging's future?

Economic and market forces drive sustainability movement; new committee attempting to harmonize standards pertaining to environmental packaging.

Pw 3879 Sustainable Standards 1

In his online report coverage of the ISTA Transport Packaging Forum, DDL’s Pat Nolan writes, “’Green’ packaging will continue to be driven predominantly by economic and market forces, independent of the ‘sustainability movement.’”

Nolan, an editorial contributor to Healthcare Packaging magazine, succinctly states, “Over the long term, there are no incentives for businesses to use more packaging materials than is required to get the product to the consumer. It has always made good business sense to discover the most economical and practical way to package your product.”

Beyond this practical advice, Nolan plunges more deeply into package sustainability, saying, “The pursuit of continuous improvement for package sustainability does not preclude the development of standards, goals, and ‘scorecards,’ however; it presents a challenge to the development of global standardization.” He points out, “It will not exactly be ‘sustainable packaging’ if each supplier has to comply with a different ‘scorecard’ for each retailer they want to sell to; so global standardization appears essential.”

To that end, he says, a new International Organization for Standardization committee, TC 122/SC 4 (Packaging and Environment) “is attempting to harmonize standards from industrialized countries around the world. The outcome will eventually be a set of international standards on packaging optimization, reuse, material recycling, energy recycling, chemical recovery, and organic recovery.”

Annual Outlook Report: Workforce
Hiring remains a major challenge in packaging, with 78% struggling to fill unskilled roles and 84% lacking experienced workers. As automation grows, companies must rethink hiring and training. Download the full report for key insights.
Download Now
Annual Outlook Report: Workforce
Conveying Innovations Report
Editors report on distinguishing characteristics that define each new product and collected video demonstrating the equipment or materials as displayed at the show. This topical report, winnowed from nearly 300 PACK EXPO collective booth visits, represents a categorized, organized account of individual items that were selected based on whether they were deemed to be both new, and truly innovative, based on decades of combined editorial experience in experiencing and evaluating PACK EXPO products.
Take me there
Conveying Innovations Report