During the second week of November, AMERIPEN held their third and final webinar of their series, Understanding Packaging Claims and Labeling Requirements, with a focus on 鈥淩ecommendations for Applying On-Pack Claims and Labels in 2025 and Beyond鈥�. Moderated by Kyla Fisher, Program Director for AMERIPEN, featured speakers included John Hewitt, Senior VP of Packaging, Sustainability, and State Affairs for the Consumer Brands Association, Paul Nowak, Executive Director for GreenBlue, and Alex Truelove, Legislation and Advocacy Manager for BPI.
Kyla Fisher started off the webinar with welcoming the speakers, thanked the annual program sponsors and the webinar sponsors, and turned over the discussion to John Hewitt first who talked about 鈥楨nabling Greater Transparency and Circularity with Smart Packaging.鈥� He covered that SmartLabel was established in 2015 by the Consumer Brands Association in conjunction with industry partners and serves as standardized manufacturer information and a transparency tool for industry and consumers to communicate with one another beyond what is on the package. SmartLabel works with 80 participating companies, more than 1,000 brands and 108,000+ products. It is being actively used and updated at all times. Standardized tabs about the product include Nutritional, Ingredients, Allergens, About this Product, and Company, Brand & Sustainability. This last tab is where companies can use their own hyperlinks to take the consumers outside of SmartLabel to continue to engage on their own brand and company website. While sustainability attributes are also featured, integrations with Recycle Check, CIRT, How2Recycle, and others can be implemented. He pointed out SmartLabel鈥檚 new partnership with the CIRT Check鈩� Integration program, where you can scan the QR code and it takes you to the SmartLabel landing page. There consumers can type in 鈥榬ecycling鈥�, their zip code, and get recycling instructions and information, which is particularly helpful for those items that are questionable, and whether an item participates in a recycling program. This reflects the continuing commitment to transparency and sustainability in the consumer product sector. The integration allows the two programs to access a certain database providing that location for recycling instructions respective to the product. In addition, the Consumer Brands Association has partnered with Recycle Check to provide a database for consumers to check where they can take their recyclable items locally. He stressed that recycling instructions on packages are really essential to circularity commitments, leading to cleaner streams and educating consumers in order for them to separate recycling items more efficiently.
Next, Paul Nowak discussed GreenBlue鈥檚 How2Recycle program. Now around for more than 10 years, it started as a Collaborative within The Sustainable Packaging Coalition. The thought was to have a voluntary program that would provide ongoing instructions for what to do next with packaging when you are done with the product. The How2Recycle label is the most recognizable and widely used on packages in North America. It is a recycling education tool compliant with the law in the U.S. and Canada. As a label, it provides recycling and disposal instructions 聽based on national data. Today, the program has 800+ member companies using the label and 8 out of 10 consumers recognizing the label. He said it is important as we go forward that there is a brand equity that has grown over that time. To participate, a brand must become a member and sign a contract with GreenBlue. For the assessment, they enter 65+ data points about the material specifications of their packaging. Then a label is assigned for the brand to use on their packaging鈥攖hat label could say it should go to the landfill; it will not necessarily say that something is recyclable. The base guidelines for this process are the FTC Green Guides. Outside of the four buckets that are defined in the Green Guides, GreenBlue added policy, however, Nowak stressed that GreenBlue does not lobby, they comply, which means that if the laws have changes, the How2Recycle assessment program will change accordingly. As states have entered into defining recyclability, they are in discussion with the Canadian government, and the program will comply with their changes as well. He also talked about How2Recycle Forward, which is the next step in the evolution of the program. Commenting that brands are using the label and some consumers are understanding it, he says the feeling is that there is much more to do on the education side and as a whole we are asking the label to do too much of the heavy lifting. Currently, GreenBlue is very focused on consumer education and how to add ease of use, how they are interacting with a label, meeting them where they are, and bringing trust to the recycling system. He asked, so what is the right way to have a multi-educational campaign? There are four main pillars of the How2Recycle Forward campaign鈥�1) Label Refresh, 2) Data Ecosystem, 3) Operational Optimization, and 4) Consumer Education. Label Design Refresh does not necessarily aim to change the label, but it does focus on transitioning to today鈥檚 requirements. This includes being prepared for policy and issues with labels, dealing with digitization, as well as meeting consumer of today. 聽It also looks at how to make the How2Recycle label adaptable to the changing legislative and recyclability landscapes. The How2Recycle team has partnered with SPC to refresh the design of the on-pack label instructions. After a year of work on it, they do have a brand refresh label that they are showing to the FTC and the Canadian government. He said they are in the phase of having them reviewed before launching officially. The aim is not just to have a QR code or symbol, but to also provide other information for consumers as available. To support this growth, they are looking at how to partner with other groups, such as AMERIPEN and Consumer Brands Association. Nowak stressed that the data keeps changing, so to have a good program, you have to keep up with the research. With Operational Optimization, they are implementing new communication methods for specs and automating internal design processes to reduce data entry, speed up label designations, and accelerate scaling clear instructions for consumers. The Data Ecosystem focuses on working with partners who specialize in everything from a material鈥檚 chemical makeup to regional recyclability. Consumer Education is really the crux of the program. Now, as EPR compels consumer education, they are exploring the potential of a national consumer checkoff campaign.
Finally, Alex Truelove spoke about 鈥極n-Pack Claims and Labels for Compostables鈥�. As a leading organization for compostable products, BPI鈥檚 labeling is part of their certification scheme. For a product to be called compostable through BPI, you must go through a number of certain checks. That starts with Eligibility, then Testing at BPI-Approved Labs to ASTM Standards, Third-Party Conformity Assessment Based on BPI Certification Scheme, Artwork Review & Licensing, and Listed in BPI Online Product Database. This is to make sure that consumers know that the product has been tested and can trust that it is compostable. With 35+ products currently certified, the certification process does not designate biodegradability beyond specific systems like compost facilities, home compost piles, or agricultural fields, or advocate for a single certifying entity. There are five elements that are required for BPI鈥檚 Certification Mark Usage Requirement: 1) The BPI 鈥榮wirl鈥� design element, 2) The letters BPI, 3) At least one 鈥楥ompostable鈥� claim separate from the FTC disclaimer statement, 4) An identifier (company name, brand name, or company ID/CERT #), and 5) Disclaimer/qualifier language required by the FTC and CB. BPI conducted a study a few years ago with Closed Loop Partners to see what type of labeling schemes are really helpful to consumers. They looked at a number of different items and labeling elements from color and size of font to certification market, etc. They also looked at green washing and unsubstantiated claims. He said they discovered that when you have multiple reinforcing design elements, you start to see positive behavior from consumers. The respondents favored design for easy identification. As a results, labeling legislation (as of November 2024) includes correctly identifying compostable products with the correct terminology requiring the word 鈥榗ompostable鈥� as well as third party certification marks and the right color that requires all compostable food service products and film bags be colored or tinted with green or brown. Legislation also addresses combatting non-compostable contaminants. This prohibits terms like 鈥榖iodegradable鈥�, 鈥榙egradable鈥� and 鈥榙ecompostable鈥� as well as prohibits non-compostable products from being colored or like compostables. BPI is keeping an eye on it to make sure they are providing the correct information to the consumers and companies making the products.
A Q&A at the end of the presentations addressed questions about standardizing packaging systems, what makes clear instructions, how to provide consumer education and communication, how to address marketing claims, how can we ensure consistent approaches to this issue, is the transparency of data available to the public, USDA rules in composting when it comes to agriculture, advice to brands, and where do we go from here, etc. A good point was that the industry should continue to build a system to make it easy for consumers to scan and have the most accurate information as possible. There is a lot of opportunity in this space. The speakers encouraged brands to choose courage over fear when it comes to labeling information. You have the responsibility to have clarity on the term 鈥榬ecyclable鈥�.
The webinar series was another group of informative sessions that provided attendees with the knowledge they needed to navigate this complex issue and left with some ways to move forward and how to ask the right questions.