The Role of Packaging
Environment and
Sustainability
The Role of Packaging
Packaging plays a vital role in protecting your product, promoting it to consumers, and communicating important information.
Learn more about how to balance these requirements with environmental goals, and also what the packaging industry is doing to help.
Packaging is a marketing tool
Packaging promotes the product to the consumer, acting as the ultimate on-shelf billboard for key messages like branding, product variety, key features and benefits, and much more. It also communicates vital information like ingredients, nutritional panel, usage instructions, warnings and regulatory messages. It can also be used to provide recycling information to ensure the consumer is well-informed and can play their part.
Protection of product
Packaging stores and helps protect the product on its journey from manufacturer to the consumer. If the packaging doesn't adequately protect the product it cannot be used or consumed, wasting precious resources. It also supports the usage of the product. The right balance must be found between sustainable goals and the packaging being able to withstand the rigours of supply chain. Considerations include packaging material type, if and how much the packaging material can be lightweighted, packaging application method, transport and storage, and product shelf-life.
The packaging industry
The packaging industry as a whole is proactively driving change and improvement in this space. Our industry is focused on developing ways to support our clients desire for more environmentally conscious packaging options whilst not compromising their product.
A key champion of this is the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO), which is a co-regulatory, not-for-profit organisation that partners with government and industry to reduce the harmful impact of packaging on the Australian environment. We've been a signatory since 2013; learn more about our progress here. APCO has been charged with delivering the 2025 National Packaging Targets to create a new sustainable pathway for the way we manage packaging in Australia. The four targets, to be achieved by 2025, are:
- 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging
- 70% of plastic packaging being recycled or composted
- 30% of average recycled content included in packaging
- The phase out of problematic and unnecessary single-use plastics packaging.
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