Advancing Sustainability in a Complex Value Chain

The Global Packaging Project

Unquestionably, the brand owners and retailers have established an outstanding sustainability platform, in the form of the Consumer Goods Forum’s Global Packaging Project. It is bringing together the world’s leading manufacturers and retailers, along with their packaging suppliers at every level and related industry associations, as a single group of people with a single agenda. This group has already defined what is now the accepted framework for informed debate on sustainability concerns throughout the supply chain: the Global Protocol on Packaging Sustainability. Through its common professional sustainability language that transcends the boundaries of commercial advantage, the GPPS is facilitating a meaningful dialogue between customers and suppliers on appropriate parameters to be used to measure environmental progress. FINAT is an active supporter, representing the interests of both the thousands of label converters in Europe, and further afield, who provide finished labels for the end users, as well as its valued supplier company members. I personally believe that if any initiative will deliver a real blueprint for the optimal combination of environmental-friendliness and fit-for-purpose packaging, it will be this worldwide forum of suppliers and users.