Six global consumer goods companies have joined forces to accelerate the development of responsibly designed paper-based alternatives to flexible plastic packaging. The PaperFlex Consortium includes Colgate-Palmolive, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Unilever as founding members and is open for others to join.

The consortium, which is convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and managed by (RE)SET, will focus on markets where flexible plastic packaging is widely used and where a lack of collection and recycling systems could increase their likelihood of ending up in the environment. For those markets, the consortium aims to design alternatives that will be recyclable as collection systems improve and biodegradable in the event they unintentionally end up in the environment.

Flexible plastic packaging, including sachets, wrappers and pouches, is the fastest-growing type of plastic packaging worldwide, and scaled solutions to recycle the material currently are not widely available.

Over the next few years, the consortium, through its members, intends to shape, fund and conduct collaborative trials covering innovations in areas such as biodegradable coatings and other technologies that deliver product protection, shelf life and consumer usability, and improve how paper-based materials perform on manufacturing lines.

Joint research and development efforts will help develop and scale promising innovations faster and at a lower cost, getting new options to consumers sooner. While helping to accelerate the availability of solutions, members will continue to adopt their own strategies and make decisions related to their own packaging independently.

“Responsible paper-based flexible packaging solutions don’t yet exist at the performance, scale and cost required,” said Sander Defruyt, strategy lead for plastics at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. “This consortium signals strong demand for them – and real ambition from six consumer goods companies to help scale them.”

Gilles Demaurex, head of global packaging development at Nestlé; Allison Lin, global VP of healthy planet and chief circularity officer at Mars; Pablo Costa, head of packaging, digital and transformation R&D at Unilever, were quoted in the announcement.

Small-format flexible plastic packaging was identified as one of three key systemic barriers to tackling plastic waste in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business.

The PaperFlex Consortium invites other FMCG companies, innovators, suppliers and investors to join by visiting paperflexconsortium.org.