Sustainable Packaging Scorecard: How Does Your Business Stack Up?

Sustainability is moving beyond aspirational goals toward disciplined execution driven by regulations, infrastructure realities, and EPR fee exposure.

Source: EMF The Global Commitment 2025 Progress Report

On one hand, the CPG and packaging industries have delivered measurable gains.

• Since 2018, 1,200 global signatories to EMF's 2025 Global Commitment have reduced their use of virgin plastic by 6%, while the broader global market has increased virgin plastic consumption by 13%. Furthermore, these signatories tripled their use of post-consumer recycled (PCR) content in packaging from 4.6% in 2018 to nearly 17% and eliminated over 775,000 tons of problematic or unnecessary plastic.
• Industry-led source reduction initiatives decreased U.S. packaging volume by nearly five million metric tons from 2019 to 2024, despite the pandemic-driven surge in e-commerce and greater packaging demand, according to a report commissioned by AMERIPEN and the Consumer Brands Association (CBA).

On the other hand, companies continue to struggle with many highly publicized sustainability targets—particularly reuse, refill, and compostable formats—at scale.

• EMF’s signatories did not meet their 2025 targets to reduce virgin plastic use by 18%, achieve 26% PCR content, and ensure 100% of plastic packaging is either reusable, recyclable, or compostable. Reusable packaging, which accounts for about 1% of all packaging, has remained flat since 2018.
• The AMERIPEN/CBA report warns that companies face significant headwinds if they attempt to push volume reductions beyond 5% to 10%, citing data gaps, product protection and safety requirements, supply chain costs, and competing sustainability goals.

Infrastructure limitations, material availability constraints, cost volatility, and uneven consumer adoption continue to slow progress. In response, some brand owners are revising timelines, narrowing scope, or, in certain cases, stepping away from voluntary commitments altogether.

At the same time, state legislatures across the United States are rapidly expanding EPR laws. These regulations are redefining what "success" looks like in sustainable packaging. Increasingly, companies are shifting their focus away from aspirational goal setting and toward compliance, reporting accuracy, fee exposure, and defensible design decisions.

From Ambition to Execution: Key Sustainability Trends

Several major trends are shaping the next phase of sustainable packaging, and each trend carries clear implications for how CPG organizations should evaluate their performance and progress.

Consumers increasingly prefer more responsible packaging and demonstrate a willingness to pay a premium for it. Retailers are establishing guidelines around packaging, creating supplier scorecards that evaluate vendor packaging performance across supply chains, and setting practical sustainability targets for their private label brands.

Lightweighting and material source reduction continue to deliver consistent, scalable results. Advances in packaging engineering, resin science, and design optimization enable brands to reduce material use without compromising performance, protection, or shelf appeal.

Brands are designing packaging for recyclability and circularity to meet consumer expectations, retailer requirements, and evolving regulations. In Europe, the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) mandates that companies ensure all packaging is recyclable by 2030 and links compliance to recyclability grades and eco-modulated producer fees. In North America, states including California, Oregon, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland, and Washington have enacted laws that hold brands financially accountable for the recyclability of their packaging portfolios.

Although companies now design more packaging to meet recyclability criteria, real-world outcomes still depend heavily on local collection systems, sorting capabilities, and end-market economics. As a result, brands are prioritizing packaging designs that align with existing recycling infrastructure rather than relying on theoretical recyclability claims.

Recycled content goals face structural headwinds. Despite strong intent, supply availability, quality consistency, and cost pressures constrain PCR content adoption. Many organizations recognize recycled content targets as some of the most difficult goals to achieve without creating trade-offs elsewhere in the value chain.

Reuse, refill, and compostables are stalling at scale. Although these models remain attractive in principle, large-scale deployment has proven challenging. Logistics complexity, higher costs, and inconsistent consumer participation have limited acceptance of these models beyond pilots and niche applications.

EPR is reshaping priorities. Companies now evaluate sustainability strategies through a regulatory lens. Packaging decisions directly influence compliance obligations, reporting complexity, and financial exposure, which makes regulatory awareness a core component of sustainable design. 

What This Means for Brand Owners

For brand owners, the implications are clear. Sustainable packaging no longer centers on checking boxes or issuing broad commitments. It requires disciplined execution and informed decisions that balance environmental impact, cost, performance, and regulatory risk.

Organizations that succeed in this next phase will take a pragmatic approach to circularity: focusing on scalable improvements, aligning sustainability initiatives with operational realities, and building adaptable strategies that respond to regulatory and market evolutions.

Just as importantly, brands recognize that they cannot navigate this complexity alone. They increasingly seek partners with deep packaging expertise, regulatory insight, and material knowledge.

Berlin Packaging supports brand owners at every stage of their sustainable packaging journey, helping translate market insights into actionable solutions. With one of the industry's broadest packaging portfolios and deep engineering and design capabilities, we work collaboratively with customers to identify opportunities for source reduction, product innovation, design for recyclability, integrate recycled content where feasible, explore reuse and refill models, reduce carbon footprint through life cycle analysis, and evaluate alternative materials and formats.

New Tools of the Trade

We have developed sophisticated tools around four pillars that make performance visible, comparable, and actionable across a portfolio.

1. Regulatory compliance and EPR readiness

• Automated mapping of each SKU to global EPR, PPWR, and PCR requirements, with alerts as laws change.
• Country specific report templates that reduce manual effort and ensure filings align with local formats.

2. Design for circularity

• Recyclability grading is informed by local collection and sorting realities, not only theoretical criteria.
• Flags for problematic components, additives, and formats that may trigger higher fees or noncompliance.

3. Carbon and material performance

• Life cycle assessments (LCAs) at pack, brand, and portfolio level, leveraging Berlin’s LCA and material expertise.
• KPIs for packaging weight, PCR share, renewable content, and cumulative energy demand, aligned with widely used packaging metrics.

4. Business and cost impact

• Scenario modeling to understand how design changes affect EPR fees, total cost of ownership, and carbon simultaneously.
• Dashboards that allow procurement, sustainability, and finance to work from the same data set.

In practical terms, our tools provide robust sustainability evaluations across these four pillars, making it easier to prioritize design changes that deliver the highest regulatory, carbon, and commercial impact. This solutions-oriented approach recognizes trade-offs, manages risk, and delivers measurable progress.