Changes towards more sustainable food packaging legislation and practices. A survey of policy makers and stakeholders in Europe

The European Commission advocates for the implementation of more sustainable food systems. To accelerate the transition towards zero waste for the benefit of citizens, industry, public organizations, and to preserve biodiversity, it is necessary to re-design our relationship with the planet’s resources. The European Commission proposal on the circular economy (2015) has set high targets in relation to reusing, upcycling, and recycling of plastic materials. In this context, it is imperative to re-evaluate how we protect foods with packaging. In this work, we report the results of one-on-one interviews with policy makers, citizens, and industry actors held over the spring/summer period of 2021 across European countries. The interviews (2 per group, 6 per country, for a total of 54 interviews) highlighted the need to advance and improve policies, thereby leading to better industrial and societal practices in the EU. Furthermore, harmonization of policies and practices is needed to achieve the set sustainability targets. Key regional differences across Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Norway, Estonia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Germany became apparent during the interviews, especially in relation to the infrastructure for collecting, sorting and using of packaging waste. The interviews also showed that policymakers and industrial stakeholders have common goals towards a more circular economy. However, such collaborations require a whole systems approach to achieve behavioral changes towards this goal. Using ideation tools, namely the Iceberg model and the Berkana two-loop model, the different food packaging challenges were identified, explored and evaluated in terms of their feasibility and impact on sustainability. Furthermore, the main solutions were categorized in an Impact-effort matrix. These tools, through an extensive analysis, demonstrated that the integration of sustainable food packaging solutions within Europe depends more on policies and stakeholders’ mindsets than on technical aspects.