Designing for a circular society: Our contribution to protecting the future

The conversation around sustainability is influencing both the economy and society. While opinions vary, the perspective on circularity is unified: we need systems that minimize material use, keeping it in the economy for as long as possible and out of the environment. To achieve this, we must rethink consumption patterns, starting with the everyday essentials we rely on — our food and beverages, consumer goods, medical supplies — all protected and made available by packaging. This requires a fundamental shift in mindset, as we all share the responsibility of ensuring a lasting, positive impact on our planet. This vision of a circular society means rethinking the way products are designed and delivered, with packaging that is recyclable, reusable or compostable. It also means partnering across the value chain with customers, suppliers and the supply chain. We see this as both a challenge and an opportunity.

The challenge: From waste to resource

Packaging plays a critical role in protecting products, reducing food waste, extending shelf life and offering consumers choices and convenience. Plastic packaging is often the best alternative because of its efficient material use, light weight, resistance to moisture and oxygen, and durability — all unique features that turn it into a problem when it’s littered into the environment. Plastic may take hundreds of years to decompose¹ and projections indicate that, without significant action, production, use and waste of plastic will increase by 70% by 2040.²

Thus, we must accelerate our collective efforts to build a circular economy for the packaging industry — optimizing material use and design, improving collection and sorting, and ensuring that recycling, reuse and composting options are effective, accessible and intuitive for consumers.

Where we stand: Innovation in action

At Amcor, we focus on developing the best packaging for its intended purpose, always with a responsible end-of-use in mind. We're committed to designing solutions that are recyclable, reusable or compostable, and to including 10% post-consumer recycled content in all our packaging by the end of 2025.

In fact, we are already well on track to meet this commitment. In fiscal year 2024, more than 95% of our rigid packaging production (by weight) was considered recyclable in practice and at scale. Additionally, 94% of our flexible packaging portfolio (by area) had a recycle-ready solution available — up from about 56% in 2018. This marks significant progress and underscores our ongoing commitment to innovate more sustainable packaging solutions. “The core R&D group at Amcor is dedicated to further advancing our technologies by working closely with our customers,” says William Jackson, Chief Technology Officer. “This way we can ensure the development of more sustainable packaging solutions while responding to the specific needs of our customers.”

Beyond innovation: The barriers to packaging circularity

True success, however, requires more than just innovation. Broad adoption of circular practices depends on various key factors:

• Market demand: As manufacturers, brand owners, retailers or consumers, we must prioritize recyclable, reusable and compostable packaging solutions to drive meaningful change.
• Infrastructure investments: Collection and sorting systems and recycling facilities need significant investment and expansion to convert materials globally at scale.
• Consumer participation: Even the most advanced responsible packaging won’t be effective unless we, as consumers, actively use and dispose of it correctly.

These are challenges that no single company can solve alone. Collaboration across the value chain is critical to accelerating this transition.

A shared vision for a circular society

Our vision is a future where sustainable consumption is the norm — a world where packaging is no longer seen as waste but as a resource that is continuously regenerated. And this requires everyone – manufacturers, brand owners, retailers, consumers and policymakers — to play their part. As David Clark, Chief Sustainability Officer at Amcor, puts it:

“A circular society isn’t just about more sustainable packaging — it’s about building better systems. Collaboration is essential to making reusability, compostability and recyclability the standard, not the exception.”

¹ https://www.un.org/en/exhibits/exhibit/in-images-plastic-forever#:~:text=Plastic%20waste%20can%20take%20anywhere,in%20the%20last%2013%20years
² https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/policy-scenarios-for-eliminating-plastic-pollution-by-2040_76400890-en.html