Developing the strategy

Abstract

The commercial operating environment is increasingly demanding more sustainable products and improved environmental performance. How a business responds to this demand should be embedded within its corporate strategy. For many years, packaging has been at centre stage in political and consumer campaigns to address environmental issues. Packaging does generate environmental impacts in all stages of its life cycle however these cannot be isolated from the impacts of the product it protects. Packaging's role in the corporate strategy should be clearly identified, by understanding the environmental life cycle of products and their packaging and relevant current or emerging environmental regulations. Packaging sustainability initiatives should optimise the product-packaging system and reduce specific environmental impacts including those of the packaging itself. This chapter outlines issues to consider in constructing the business case for investing in packaging for sustainability and, setting goals and targets for packaging's contribution to a business's more general sustainable development goals.