European Green Deal

At a glance

The EU strives to be a global sustainability leader, by becoming the first continent to be climate neutral by 2050.

The European Green Deal, the new growth strategy announced by the European Commission in 2019, sets the tone for the decades to come: the EU economy must become circular, resource efficient and competitive and with no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050.

Packaging and the European Green Deal

The European Green Deal sets the circular economy as one of its main priorities, planning to mobilise industry to make Europe’s economy competitive and circular.

The European Green Deal sets important policy goals to further advance the sustainable transition of the packaging value chain, which include:

  • Ensuring that all packaging in the EU market is reusable or recyclable in an economically viable manner by 2030.
  • Defining measures to reduce packaging waste.
  • Promoting a robust Single Market for secondary raw material to increase recycling.

These overall goals have been further detailed in the Circular Economy Action Plan 2.0, which plans for the revision of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, a major piece of legislation for the packaging sector. Through this revision, essential requirements for packaging and the definition of measures to reduce (over)packaging and packaging waste will be addressed alongside measures to improve packaging design for reuse and recycling.

EUROPEN is actively engaged in the implementation of the European Green Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan and is committed to do its utmost to deliver the sustainability commitments of the packaging value chain. The packaging sector is also contributing to the implementation of other initiatives coming from the European Green Deal, such as the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Initiative on Substantiating Green Claims and the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.

Our position

EUROPEN is committed to the climate neutrality goal of the European Green Deal. Concretely, EUROPEN members are  striving towards carbon neutrality of the packaging value chain and providing solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of packaging and packaged products.

Pursuing the EU Green Deal’s objectives requires embracing a life-cycle approach to circularity, where climate and environmental performance is assessed throughout the entire life-cycle of packaging and product. The fundamental goal is to reduce the overall EU climate and environmental impacts.

To effectively tackle Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and their consequent climate impact, it is essential to consider both the GHG emissions linked to the packaging lifecycle as well as the GHG emissions linked to food and product waste and the savings guaranteed through packaging use. The same consideration applies for other environmental impacts.

Policy and regulatory measures tackling climate and environmental impacts must be based on a thorough and evidence-based impact assessment of unavoidable and potential trade-offs to minimise or prevent any unintended consequences or negative impacts (environmental, economic and social impacts).