Companies abandon material-agnostic approach to sustainable packaging

Are some materials fundamentally unsustainable? In the past, most companies working with challenging or hard-to-recycle materials would’ve said yes, believing their material would overcome known obstacles eventually.

Today, the tides are turning. Notable materials like plastic are meeting a “no more chances” attitude from design professionals. As part of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s second-annual Trends Report, which launches next month, we’re seeing a clear trend in which the design and sustainable packaging industries are abandoning their past neutrality on materials.  

How certain materials fell out of favor

When companies began to work on sustainability projects in earnest several decades ago, most took a “material agnostic” approach. They focused on the “job” that packaging needed to do and tried to select a material that balanced sustainability with efficiency and cost. This led to a system that prioritized functional, aesthetic, and performance requirements over material sustainability.  

In 2025, this is a decidedly less popular strategy. While fossil-fuel plastic might seem like the only material facing this pushback, take a closer look and you’ll see this trend playing out for certain fibers and bioplastics, too. 

Let’s start with plastic. Public perception paired with U.S. and international packaging policies, global plastic treaty discussions, and innovations in alternative materials have permanently changed the plastics conversation. Although the global plastics treaty stalled and is awaiting future negotiations as of August, last year a coalition of nations took notable positions on plastics. This included members of the EU, South Korea, Canada, Rwanda, Peru, and — fleetingly but meaningfully — the U.S, where the federal government is now advancing markedly pro-plastic policies. These countries pushed for international caps on plastic production and the elimination of certain harmful chemicals used in plastic manufacturing — all decidedly “non-agnostic” positions. 

What about paper? Although we’re seeing a boom in paper-based packaging innovation (in 2024, one trend we saw was the “paperization of everything”), the “tree-free” movement is also noteworthy. A number of smaller brands, often makers of products like toilet paper, paper towels and disposable food serviceware, have started to lean on alternative fibers like bamboo to tell a story about how their products help save trees and prevent deforestation. This messaging plays into certain assumptions — often misconceptions — about the sustainability of alternative fibers, yet it also signals a vocal move away from one material towards others. 

Companies set material-specific goals

Fed up with threats of microplastics, deforestation or the ongoing challenges with recycling, companies are setting material-specific goals and touting their work to moving away from certain materials. Some recent examples include:

• Google’s goal to eliminate plastic packaging for new consumer electronics products by 2025. Last year, the tech behemoth made news by open-sourcing its plastic-free guide and sharing its learnings and products with peer companies. The company is already 99 percent of the way to its goal, and the redesigns have catalyzed other sustainability wins — packaging weight and volume have been reduced by at least 50 percent. 
• Amazon removed 95 percent of its plastic air pillows as part of its multi-year effort to remove plastic delivery packaging from North American fulfillment centers, replacing them with paper filler made from 100 percent recycled content. This amounted to the company’s largest plastic packaging reduction effort in North America and will avoid nearly 15 billion plastic air pillows annually. 
• Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company Takeda set and exceeded a 50 percent sustainable paper packaging goal, asking their suppliers to pursue Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification while also exploring how to reduce paper inserts by transitioning to digital product information leaflets. 
• Unilever has shared its efforts to “transition from hard-to-recycle plastics into paper with a compostable barrier” and replace plastics “with an alternative material in the future.” 

Approaching materials with a new mindset

Companies — and people — are approaching materials in a new way, setting boundaries around what kind of materials they want to work or interact with. Every material comes with sustainability and performance trade-offs. Some companies — often inspired by consumer pressure — are now saying, “I prefer a material with these trade-offs, not those.”

This shift is similar to other kinds of environmentally conscious mindset shifts, like people opting to eat less meat in favor of plant-based alternatives. When people choose fake meat, for example, they’re opting into current trade-offs such as synthetic ingredients or higher costs, and opting out of higher carbon footprints or ethical issues with animal products. 

In packaging, this shift is prompting more companies to draw a line in the sand for their portfolio. Instead of attempting to resolve long-standing challenges and never-ending trade-offs for a wide range of materials, companies can lean into a smaller set of issues for a handful of materials they prefer. 

So maybe the future of sustainable packaging boils down to narrowing your focus on material choices that help you determine which sustainability battles are worth fighting for.

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