Why We Cannot See Packaging & Packaging Waste Attributes in Market Tracking Data
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a CPG manufacture in search of growth must be in need of a sustainability strategy.
The packaging landscape is shifting fast, with governments introducing packaging waste regulations and implementing producer responsibility initiatives across the world.
Whilst the European Union bloc is probably generating the most activity at present, the ASEAN region is already active with their own producer responsibility schemes, and the rest of the world will no doubt follow.
Given this change, manufacturers are deep into the detail of recyclability, composition, labelling and exposure to new financial impacts. Compliance teams, Packaging engineers and Sustainability leads are very busy.
But the reality is that little of that work is making its way into the market performance datasets which product and commercial teams use every day.
Manufacturers already hold highly detailed packaging data about their products…
… but the information does not yet flow into the tools where most commercial decisions are made: NIQ, Circana, Kantar and the rest. Sustainability attributes do not exist in measurement data in a way that is consistent and accurate.
The importance of this gap will start to grow.
Compliance data is being shared
Packaging data today flows directly from manufacturers to EPR schemes: Valpak, CITEO, Ecoembes and others. They collect the material and recyclability data, validate it, and issue the compliance reports manufacturers are required to submit. The information is precise and actionable.
The coming of harmonised logos will improve the capabilities of deep-attribute providers to create the taxonomies required to hold these attributes in a structure perfectly suited for processing, analytics and reporting.
But this “information from source” seems to be staying on the compliance side of the wall and is not making it through to tracking data where commercial teams can leverage it.
Marketing tracking data is not ready to measure the impact of sustainability schemes.
On the insight side, data providers do attempt to carry sustainability-coded attributes:
- “If Recyclable”
- “If Returnable”
- “Recycled Material”
On the surface, this looks promising. But when you dig into them, two issues quickly become apparent:
The attributes are unreliable and not granular enough
Across markets you’ll see:
- “Returnable/Refillable” being used to describe refill-at-home, Deposit Return Scheme, and genuine reuse schemes interchangeably.
- “Recyclable” as one amorphous attribution, taking no account of the specifics.
- Compostable packaging coded as recyclable. Are these attributes interchangeable or manufacturer specific? Does the coding comply with government standards?
- Packaging containing both recyclable and non-recyclable components coded as fully recyclable.
These attributes often originate from on-pack claims or product images — not from data received from the manufacturers engineering details.
Current “sustainability” attributes do not capture the details available from the manufacturer engineering experts, which are not included in product information visible on pack or through Retailer descriptions.
The results can be messy and inconsistent, and can lead to incorrect insights being derived. Definitions vary across countries with the same words being used to describe different concepts.
This data will not empower Category Leads and Brand Managers to understand the impact of the regulations on their product performance.
The next four years require a different kind of collaboration
To close this gap, three worlds need to work together in a new collaboration model.
The opportunity is in the intersection of these three domains.
With investment in this collaboration, then by 2028–2030 we could see:
- clean, trusted PPWR-ready attributes in retail measurement datasets
- harmonised recyclability tiers visible in category dashboards
- Deposit Return Scheme applicability coded accurately at SKU level
- reuse status clearly distinguishable from returnable/refillable
- packaging composition linked to sales performance
- sustainability outcomes integrated with commercial outcomes
Without that collaboration, we will enter PPWR with commercial teams flying blind.
PPWR is not just a compliance exercise, it is a market shift impacting everything from shelf-space and shopper switching to retailer scorecards.
But, none of that can be understood unless sustainability attributes enter the same datasets used day to day by category and commercial teams.
If this subject is of interest to you and you would like to dig deeper into the way forward for sustainability attributes, please get in touch for a chat.