If you’re tuned into corporate sustainability, you probably hear companies talk about net-zero targets all the time. You probably also hear companies talk about efforts to prevent plastic pollution and improve packaging recyclability. But how often do you hear companies try to link these efforts together?
It’s a huge missed opportunity. Packaging waste and carbon emissions are two sides of the same coin — the materials used for transport and disposal carry a carbon cost across its life cycle. Understanding this connection is key for making meaningful progress on both fronts.
While the sustainable packaging community has been busy setting sustainability goals to hit recycling or sustainable sourcing targets, it can feel like the industry has forgotten where these goals are supposed to take us: to a world where we have carbon emissions and waste under control.
Understanding packaging’s contribution to carbon emissions
Packaging, as most of us know, heavily contributes to the climate crisis.
In 2019, plastics contributed more emissions than the aviation and shipping industries combined. According to the OECD, the supply chain of plastics generated 3.4 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, and 90 percent of this came from production and conversion from fossil fuels.
If plastics were a country, they would have the fifth-largest share of global emissions as of 2022, just below China, the U.S., India and Russia. Although many plastics go into products that aren’t packaging, if we look at the rest of the packaging value chain — glass, aluminum, fiber, bioplastics — the total carbon footprint of packaging would be even larger.
Right now, the consequences of packaging’s waste and carbon emissions are treated in siloes. Waste is framed as a pollution problem, carbon as a climate one — and companies are left to piece together fragmented strategies instead of unified solutions. But we can tackle climate change by using sustainable packaging efforts through the following strategies.
Fold your packaging goals and wins into your climate strategy
Too often, sustainable packaging does the hard work of decarbonizing without getting credit for it. It’s time to change that. Reducing packaging material avoids emissions, and this should be counted towards emissions targets. Redesigning packaging so that it doesn’t go to landfills is a win for your carbon goals, too.
Embedding packaging goals and calculations into your climate strategy is the first step. If you don’t know where to start, use Life Cycle Assessment tools and packaging calculators to calculate the avoided emissions of a packaging change.
Make it clear — to colleagues, consumers and investors — how your packaging efforts are part of your climate strategy. Unilever’s Scope 3 GHG reduction plan, for example, shows how packaging is helping them to meet their 2030 target of reducing absolute Scope 3 emissions by 30-40 percent.
Think differently about tradeoffs
Right now, when we design packaging to be recyclable and the change creates more emissions, this is called a tradeoff. Companies feel they have to pick one direction, and based on pressure from consumers, they often choose recyclability. If a package has no good end-of-life option but a lower carbon footprint (like a not yet recyclable plastic bag, for example), this is considered another unfortunate, but necessary tradeoff.
Instead, what if we thought about tradeoffs like we think about flying with a layover? Layovers aren’t your final destination — they’re just a sometimes necessary stop along the way. Making short-term sustainability tradeoffs is a layover on our path toward a future with reduced waste and carbon emissions in packaging.
Companies don’t have to wait to address both crises, either. Already, companies such as Prana are adopting practices — such as using seaweed-based compostable packaging — to address both waste and carbon emissions.
Go for the big swings
What’s the single biggest swing companies can take to address both climate and packaging waste? Reduction. While switching to a “better” single-use material — renewable feedstock or recycled content — may seem like a step forward, it’s ultimately only an incremental change.
The future of sustainable packaging hinges on whether companies truly understand and embrace the importance of reduction and system redesign. By reducing the amount of packaging used in the first place and redesigning packaging to be reusable or refillable, companies can significantly lower resource use, carbon emissions and environmental impact. And you can take comfort knowing that your company won’t be the first to do this. Companies such as beverage giant Diageo are already finding ways to scale circular, reusable packaging.
Right now, we’re wasting our time in transit. If we meet these opportunities — by folding our packaging and climate goals together, rethinking tradeoffs and taking big swings — we’ll reach that future with reduced waste and carbon emissions.
For more on reducing and eliminating waste in the global economy, stay tuned for Circularity 2025 starting Tuesday.
