A Tompkins' Supply Chain Consortium survey of top retail- and manufacturing-related companies reveals that more than 65 percent of companies have some type of sustainable packaging policy in place, while 28 percent are currently developing a policy.
"When projecting the evolution of sustainable packaging, the future appears to be bright," says Bruce Tompkins, executive director of the consortium and author of the Packaging Sustainability Report. "Sustainable packaging is a very important issue for all types of companies across all aspects of their supply chains, and it continues to be thought of as a long-term, higher-level strategic process that provides overall direction to the organization," he says.
For 79 percent of companies, packaging sustainability impacts their strategic direction in the area of energy and material costs, and 76 percent see an impact in environmental and economic concerns. At the same time, executives see less of an impact in the areas of increasing competitiveness and access to new markets, indicating that sustainable packaging may be more about "hard" savings rather than "soft" benefits.
The Packaging Sustainability survey is the first of a four-part series being conducted by Tompkins' Supply Chain Consortium.
