How to Build Buy-in for Your Sustainable Packaging Strategy

A Conversation Companion for Making the Case for Sustainable Packaging and Innovation to Your Organization’s Leadership

With EPR fees reaching into the billions, greenwashing litigation intensifying, and recycled content mandates reshaping supply chains, the financial and legal stakes of packaging have never been higher. This resource is intended to help sustainability professionals, packaging engineers, and others who work on sustainable packaging “make the case” to your organization’s leadership for significant investment in sustainable packaging work and innovation.

#1 – Compliance Sets the Floor for Sustainability Goals

Sustainable packaging goals haven’t fallen out of favor — they’ve been codified into law. While large brands may seem quieter about voluntary commitments, the reality is that packaging requirements around recyclability in practice, recycled content, and chemical restrictions are now mandated across entire regions. Packaging regulations now span the entire EU, over 98% of the Canadian population, and at least 20% of the U.S. market. Goals for companies haven’t disappeared; they’ve simply moved from the sustainability reports to the statute books.

Here’s where your goals, targets, and timelines have been set for you — or likely will be soon:

While these laws aren’t going away, some implementation timelines and regulatory nuances remain in flux. California illustrates this well: the state’s Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) Circular Action Alliance has been expected to prepare its EPR program plan and operations even as rulemaking and enforcement expectations fluctuate. This fluidity creates uncertainty as organizations make substantial operational and capital investments despite key details remaining unresolved.

However, this uncertainty also reveals a critical strategic divide. Tomorrow’s most resilient organizations won’t wait for perfect regulatory clarity — they understand that such clarity may never fully arrive. Instead, they will match external uncertainty with internal certainty, committing decisively to compliance with targets as written today and timelines as currently proposed.

Rather than treating regulatory ambiguity as a reason to delay action, resilient organizations can recognize it as an opportunity to build adaptive capacity, develop robust compliance infrastructure, and position themselves as leaders rather than laggards. By acting now with conviction, they transform regulatory uncertainty from liability into competitive advantage.

Sample Conversations