Tap Into Data to Support the Sustainability Story

At PRINTING United Expo in Las Vegas Sept. 23-25, a group of experts came together to discuss some of the biggest trends, truths, and takeaways the printing and packaging industry is facing right now. The packed panel, moderated by Ashley Roberts, content director of Printing Impressions, covered everything from economics, to OSHA, to HR — and beyond.

Sara Osorio is the manager, EHS & sustainability, at PRINTING United Alliance, and she took a closer look at what’s going on around sustainability and environmental issues right now. In particular, multiple states are exploring extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies that detail who is responsible for a piece after it has reached its end of life. And while right now that is mostly centered around packaging, there is no guarantee it won’t be applied to other types of printed products. That’s not to mention the fact that many printers are entering the packaging space on some level as convergence continues, meaning at least part of the business runs the risk of being caught in these policies.

Lawsuits challenging the EPR regulations are working their way through the courts, Osorio noted, but right now there’s way to tell where the proverbial dust will settle. “We have EPR for paper and packaging in seven states right now, but it's also moving into the textiles phase — California has already passed textile EPR. That might be challenged in court, and it might not be, but the future of EPR does remain to be seen,” she said.

One big case she has been watching took place in Oregon, where the National Association of Wholesalers (NAW) brought a lawsuit against Oregon's extended producer responsibility law for packaging.

“It was a long-awaited trial, and what ended up happening is that pretty much EPR came out completely unscathed,” she noted. “We were honestly kind of expecting for at least some parts of it to not be touched. But the entire law did survive the lawsuit. The two main points for that lawsuit were, number one that it was affecting interstate commerce, and the judge found that that was not the case for the law. And then the second part was that Circular Action Alliance — which is the producer responsibility organization that basically handles the EPR program — NAW argued that the state gave them too much power with very little oversight. Again, the judge found that not to be true. What is going to happen next is hard to tell. We don't know if NAW is going to appeal or not. They did make it very clear that this is Oregon specific, and that reminds us that in California and Colorado, there are other there are lawsuits pending that are focused on their extended producer responsibility. So what is going to happen with EPR in the U.S. remains to be seen.”

Beyond EPR, Osorio noted that when it comes to sustainability, data is only going to become more critical. Buyers, customers, and regulatory agencies will all want hard numbers to back up sustainability claims, and printers will need to have that information at hand to offer.

Osorio noted, “Sustainability can be a really good tool for you to partner with your customers. [But] when it comes to extended producer responsibility, one thing that customers are asking for is a lot of data. They are realizing what a massive undertaking it's going to be to report material weight, composition, output, and production to the state in order for the fees to be calculated. We know that they're starting to ask our members, the printers, for a lot of this information because a lot of the data they have doesn't match. So I would really stress — have that data in hand and be prepared to start answering a lot of those questions.”