The word "sustainable" has been applied to so many packaging products and materials in the last five years that it's become almost meaningless. Corrugated board manufacturers talking about "100% recyclable" boxes, plastic thermoform manufacturers talking about "bio-based" trays, and everyone claiming their product will "reduce your carbon footprint."
Some of these claims have substance. A lot of them don't. Here's how to think about it properly.
The Recyclability Problem
Recyclability is the most commonly cited sustainability claim and the most commonly misapplied. A material being technically recyclable is not the same as it being recycled in practice.
Corrugated board, in the UK, is collected and recycled at very high rates — around 85% of corrugated produced in the UK is recovered for recycling. This is genuinely good. It's a closed-loop system underpinned by infrastructure that exists and works.
A biodegradable plastic bag may be technically compostable but require industrial composting conditions that most UK consumers can't access. The fact that it ends up in landfill doesn't mean the claim is technically false — it means the claim is misleading in practice.
When evaluating recyclability claims, ask: is this actually collected in UK kerbside recycling? Is there documented recovery rate data? "Recyclable" without these qualifications is a marketing statement, not an environmental one.
Right-Sizing vs Material Switching
Material switching — replacing plastic with paper, replacing virgin fibre with recycled — gets most of the attention in sustainability conversations. Right-sizing gets much less, despite often having a bigger impact.
Right-sizing means reducing the dimensions of your packaging to match the actual product — eliminating the void fill, reducing transport weight and volume, and reducing raw material use. For many businesses, a packaging redesign that eliminates 20% of material is more impactful than switching from one material to another.
Before investing in a sustainable material switch, calculate how much material you're currently wasting. A well-specified corrugated box with no unnecessary void fill, made from standard recycled board, is often a better environmental outcome than a premium kraft box that's three times the size it needs to be.
The EPR Context
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging came into force in the UK in 2025, requiring larger producers to pay for the cost of collecting and recycling the packaging they put on the market. The fees vary by material and recyclability rating.
This changes the commercial calculus. Packaging materials with higher recyclability ratings attract lower EPR fees. For businesses in scope (turnover over £1 million and supplying over 25 tonnes of packaging per year), this creates a direct financial incentive to improve recyclability — not just a reputational one.
If you haven't assessed your packaging portfolio against the EPR recyclability categories, it's worth doing. Some substitutions that seem expensive in isolation become cost-neutral or positive once EPR fee savings are included.
What Actually Matters
The most impactful things businesses can do, roughly in order of likely impact:
- Reduce total material used — right-size packaging, eliminate unnecessary layers
- Ensure packaging is actually collected and recycled — if you're in B2C, design for kerbside recyclability
- Eliminate mixed materials that prevent recycling — windows in kraft mailers, foil laminations on otherwise recyclable cartons
- Use recycled content where available — most corrugated board already contains significant recycled fibre
- Consider transport efficiency — packaging that stacks efficiently on pallets reduces transport emissions
Material substitution — paper vs plastic debates — matters, but often less than the above.