On February 8, 2022, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company published an article reviewing the packaging regulations in 30 countries across the globe. Of the countries included, 29 had begun or already enacted packaging regulations “with the principal aim of limiting the negative impact of packaging on both the environment and on human health.” The assessment was not specific to food packaging but did find that “regulations worldwide tend to have a relatively higher focus on beverage packaging than on other categories such as food and home personal-care packaging.” The authors found that regulations in Latin America and the Middle East focus more on one category, namely food packaging, while regulators in the EU and Asia are increasingly developing a more holistic approach across packaging categories.
According to the report, the majority of the regulations target the beginning or the end of the supply chain by either banning a material or creating extended producer responsibility schemes. McKinsey & Co. grouped countries into four broad regulatory “archetypes,” (i) unclear strategy with unstructured mechanisms to support sustainable packaging, found mainly in countries in North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia; (ii) high-level strategy with generic targets/milestones but still unstructured mechanisms, found primarily in the Americas; (iii) “clear strategy with generic/common targets (not by material type), with defined key milestones, incentives, and penalties,” and (iv) “detailed, holistic strategy for at least one packaging type, with clear milestones supported by detailed targets, and structured mechanisms in place.” Archetypes three and four were primarily found in countries within Europe and East Asia.
McKinsey & Co. reported that 90% of the regulations in surveyed countries concern primary packaging, the material immediately surrounding the food or consumer product. However, “China, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines are proposing regulatory measures that focus on secondary and tertiary packaging, while India has the most measures focusing on secondary and tertiary packaging.”
The South American trade-bloc Mercosur recently updated their plastic packaging regulations (FPF reported) and several countries in South and Southeast Asia have recently updated their packaging or waste regulations (FPF reported).
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Celine Cherel-Bonnemaison, et al. (February 8, 2022). “Sustainability in packaging: Global regulatory development across 30 countries.” McKinsey & Company
