The ten-year voluntary agreement led by environmental NGO WRAP, is looking to help industry deliver on more sustainable packaging, manage the associated costs, and be a part of shaping future systems and policies.
How is this different from the UK Plastic Pact?
The UK Packaging Pact builds on WRAP’s UK Plastics Pact launched in 2018, expanding its scope to every packaging material placed on the market – from glass, paper, card, metal, as well as plastics and biobased materials.
It also serves as a stepping stone as the packaging challenge evolves. Whereas the focus had previously been on setting targets, this latest initiative is about delivering on those promises.
That’s not to say the UK Plastics Pact hasn’t delivered – with progress in particular made around removing single use disposable plastics from the market.
“We’ve made a lot of progress – but there’s still quite a lot of unfinished business, particularly around recyclability and recycling rates,” Catherine David, CEO WRAP, told Food Manufacture at the launch event.
What will the new Pact focus on?
Although a lot of businesses have already set plastic packaging related targets, David said the focus needed to stretch beyond plastics and look at how new packaging and recycling reforms will impact future materials.
The new Pact incorporates the whole value chain - from manufacturers to retailers to recyclers - to ensure future changes work for everyone and that any investment made by industry will be long-term, worthwhile ones.
A lot of work has already been ongoing behind the scenes, with brands and manufacturers piloting reuse models in lots of different formats. David said this has provided a lot of lessons which will be taken heed of as the Pact moves forward.
“There’s a wealth of insight and what a lot of it points to is that there needs to be interoperability. The infrastructure needs to be shared, no one can go alone; and from a consumer perspective it needs to make sense. And the only chance you stand of scaling that is if you collaborate.”
The agreement will also explore data harmonisation and data efficiency - with the Pact looking to simplify reporting requirements through standardisation and alignment, improved traceability, and enabling data-led design and sourcing decisions.
To avoid duplication in effort, David said the Pact will be looking to identify the issues that are likely to “fall through the cracks”. The programme has also secured backing from PackUK – the scheme administrator for the UK’s Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (pEPR) programme - which will further help deliver a cohesive approach.
The UK Packaging Pact's four goals
- Optimise packaging – for the reduction of single-use packaging, removal of problematic packaging and more recyclable packaging. To encourage right-weighting, reduce virgin fossil-fuel derived materials and increase recycled content.
- Scaling reuse and refill – to drive interoperable systems to increase the proportion of packaging that is reusable compared to single-use.
- Support infrastructure investment – to build reliable evidence base with which to accelerate and unlock new investment for key materials. To identify system bottlenecks and support initiatives to address these; across policy reforms, citizen engagement, innovation, collections and processing.
- Harmonise data – to simplify data reporting requirements through standardisation and alignment, improving traceability and enabling data-led design and sourcing decisions.
Global waste could reach 3.68BN by 2025
The timing of the launch follows a stark warning outlined in the World Bank’s third What a Waste (3.0) report: that waste generation is outpacing population growth and the capacity of local systems to cope. If no action is taken, global waste could see a 50% increase, reaching 3.86 billion tonnes by 2025.
Moreover, with virgin plastic resin prices directly tied to oil market shocks, high and volatile input costs are disproportionately affecting single use packaging models - highlighting a pressing need to move away from old systems.
Why sign up?
“The UK Packaging Pact is a unique, complete system approach to unlocking packaging transitions across the value chain. No other programme brings together the key players needed to deliver the enormous changes we must make,” said David.
“Policies are essential, but they alone cannot deliver and the Packaging Pact will deliver the practical change necessary through a flexible framework allowing signatories to focus on the actions most important to them.
“If you want to unlock progress on EPR, data, and reuse/refill, the Pact is place to come to make it happen.”
Through pre-competitive collaboration, signatories will be able to:
- Reduce costs and EPR fees through smarter design and material reduction,
- Cut greenhouse gas emissions,
- Prepare for and comply with evolving UK and EU regulation, and
The Pact has gained 100 signatories already.
