Definition of Sustainable Packaging

A Vision for Sustainable Packaging

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition® (SPC), a project of GreenBlue®, is a membership-based collaborative led by an independent non-profit that believes in the power of industry to make packaging more sustainable.

Using an objective lifecycle-based approach, we work in a constructive atmosphere to provide thought leadership and bring our members together to strengthen and advance the business case for more sustainable packaging.

The mission of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition is to use thorough research and science-based approaches to help advance and communicate a positive, robust environmental vision for packaging and to support innovative, functional packaging materials and systems that promote economic and environmental health.

This document articulates a definition of “sustainable packaging” so the packaging value chain can work toward a common vision.

By providing a comprehensive set of criteria that encompasses the systemic nature of sustainability for packaging, this definition also identifies where action can and should be taken by the packaging industry to evaluate current efforts, identify opportunities, and begin to pursue strategies to develop more sustainable packaging materials and systems.

This definition is intended as a “target vision” for companies to strive toward through continuous improvement and will evolve over time with new materials and technologies, leading to more sustainable packaging systems.

Definition of Sustainable Packaging

The criteria presented here blend broad sustainability and industrial ecology objectives with business considerations and strategies that address the environmental concerns related to the life cycle of packaging.

These criteria relate to the activities of the packaging value chain and define the areas in which we actively seek to encourage transformation, innovation, and optimization.

We believe that by successfully addressing these criteria, packaging can be transformed into a closed-loop flow of packaging materials in a system that is economically robust and provides benefits throughout its life cycle - a sustainable packaging system.