This article first appeared in the February 2025 issue of ProPack.pro, authored by the AIP’s Nerida Kelton

In Australia, the packaging industry was working in a rapidly changing environment in 2024. Since the announcement from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) that there will be a mandated National Packaging Design Standard established for the country, the industry has been heavily involved in providing feedback and contributions to the consultation process.

The key areas that the industry is looking at include the ability to reduce and reuse packaging and materials, the reduction and removing of any harmful chemicals from packaging such as PFAs, how we increase the amount of recycled content to help drive domestic end markets, and how to improve consumer and business education and training around packaging.

From a global perspective, the 64 World Packaging Organisation members all faced similar challenges and changes to country regulations that came in the form of sustainable packaging design guidelines, eco modulation design tools, extended producer responsibility programs, product stewardship programs, recycling and reprocessing infrastructure, and container deposit schemes.

What is clear is that there is no ‘silver bullet’ and each country must try and localise global standards to suit their country or region. In saying that, we do need to ensure, wherever possible, that we try and follow the same global standards and regulations and then tailor them for each country.

Heading into 2025, the DCCEEW will be consulting with governments and industry on packaging design guidance from the National Design Standards Working Group, which is based on best practice and independent expert views.

The Working Group has already developed a Design for Kerbside Recyclability Grading Framework. This framework encourages best practice design while allowing packaging to perform essential functions. The packaging design guidance provides a clear indication to industry about the importance of recyclability in good packaging design and will inform Australia’s new regulatory scheme for packaging.

The AIP will be working with DCCEEW to ensure the mandated National Packaging Design Standard is suitable for everyone in the value chain – from SMEs through to multinationals. The AIP is also updating many of its training courses to ensure that we are discussing recycled content, chemicals of concern, reuse and refill, and design to be recycle- ready for kerbside collection.

The roadmap towards the mandated National Packaging Design Standards will determine what the industry does moving forward, in terms of how the packaging landscape further evolves in 2025.

A lot more work will also be undertaken by everyone in the industry to also review alternate pathways and collection and reprocessing outside of kerbside collection.

In 2025, businesses should continue to design packaging that offers the lowest environmental impact, making sure that they build in recycled content, eliminate chemicals of concern, move to mono material packaging, and ensure that all their packaging is recycle-ready in the country that it is sold in.

I would also like more packaging technologists to embed the Save Food Packaging Design guidelines into the National Packaging Design process and to elevate the discussions around packaging’s role to minimise food loss and waste. Accessible and inclusive packaging design is also underutilised by packaging technologists, and we need to see these design principles elevated as well.

A personal highlight for packaging in Australia in 2024 was the AIP-led Save Food Packaging Project, which received the inaugural Food Waste Action Award.

The AIP Save Food Packaging consortium, which includes the AIP as the project lead, RMIT University as the research arm, and an industry led consortium of experts including Sealed Air, Zipform Packaging, Multivac, Result Group and Plantic, aims to further establish a voice for Save Food Packaging within the greater realm of sustainability and packaging design.

The Save Food Packaging project resources provide training and education materials that will lead to better packaging design, material selection and format selection using appropriate portioning, sealability and resealability features, date labelling, extend shelf life, and provide the information required to assist retail, food service and consumers to minimise food waste.

This project is just the start of the AIP continuing to be the subject matter expert in Save Food Packaging design. The next step for the AIP is to help guide businesses into embedding the five Save Food Packaging Design principles into their own businesses.

Other priorities for the AIP in 2025 include: running the AIP biennial Australasian Packaging Conference for A/NZ on 6-7 May in Sydney, discussing the theme of Reimagining Packaging Design. The Australasian Packaging Innovation & Design Awards (PIDAs) will also be held alongside of the conference on 6 May.