Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
A Strategic Collaboration for Sustainable Packaging Vision
The Retail Institute has collaborated with the packaging sector for over 25 years, enabling companies across the supply chain to support their green transition.
In addressing challenges such as plastic pollution, legislative gaps, and inadequate waste processing infrastructure, we worked closely with packaging professionals to examine the wicked problem of packaging's role in consumer society.
The Future of Packaging initiative employed a combination of Futures and Foresight techniques and Action Learning methodologies to structure its inquiry and strategic development. Over a 12-month period, a multidisciplinary panel of industry practitioners, sustainability experts, and academics participated in a series of facilitated workshops. Futures and Foresight methods enabled the exploration of long-term drivers of change and potential trajectories for the sector. Simultaneously, Action Learning fostered reflective dialogue and iterative problem-solving, allowing participants to co-create a strategic vision grounded in empirical insight and lived experience. This mixed-methods approach ensured a rigorous, participatory, and forward-looking framework for generating actionable recommendations.
Our first Future of Packaging Report (2020) identified a nexus of interdependent challenges, including:
- Consumer behaviour and sustainable communication
- Diversity in packaging materials
- Environmental performance metrics
- Evolving regulation
- Fragmented waste management systems
- The need for organisational transformation across the stakeholder landscape
Discussions at that time revealed the deeply entangled nature of plastic pollution - its linkages with social, economic, political, and environmental systems render it resistant to simple solutions. This complexity introduces both the risks of inaction and the potential for unintended consequences, much of which extends beyond the direct control of packaging producers, brands, and retailers.
Building on these insights, our 2024 Industry Group developed a more comprehensive strategy to address the sectors environmental challenges. The initiative sought to foster collaborative dialogue across the packaging supply chain and to identify strategies that balance environmental sustainability with commercial viability. By integrating academic methodologies with industry expertise, the group produced a roadmap for systemic change and formulated tailored recommendations for key actors including
- Legislators
- Businesses
- Non-profit organisations
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![The Future of Packaging report cover]()
Future of Packaging Report 2020
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![Screenshot image of a front page to a report]()
Future of Packaging Report 2025
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![Image of Future of Packaging 2025 Recommendations front page]()
Future of Packaging Report 2025 - Recommendations
The report outlines several critical recommendations:
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Integrate Sustainability into Core Business Strategies
Embed sustainable practices within core operations to enhance both environmental performance and commercial resilience.
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Enhance Consumer Engagement
Educate and involve consumers in sustainability efforts to generate demand for environmentally responsible packaging solutions.
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Invest in Waste Management Infrastructure
Support the development of infrastructure that enables effective recycling and waste reduction.
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Promote Collaborative Innovation
Foster partnerships across the supply chain to drive innovation in sustainable packaging design and systems.
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Adopt a Systems Thinking Approach
Recognise the interconnectedness of packaging decisions and their broader ecological and socio-economic impacts, necessitating holistic and integrative strategies.
If you would like to discuss any findings, or you are thinking of launching a similar group within your supply chain, get in touch with our team at the Retail Institute.
Industry Testimonials
Collaborative group
Toby Almond, a third year LBU journalism student interviewed particiapnts in a recent Futurues and Foresight collaborative group session about their views on the workshop and the future of packaging.
Toby Almond: BA (Hons) Journalism student
