Sambro, Addo Play, Paramount, and other leading names from across the toys, licensing, gifts, and greetings industries helped set the tone for the year ahead when Products of Change hosted it first Working Group meeting of the year online this week.

The Packaging Working Group session was led by Mike Swain, POC’s ambassador and advisor for packaging and legislation, and set about to answer some of the biggest questions and divulge some of the biggest updates circling the wave of legislative changes impacting the consumer product packaging sector this year.

Well attended by Products of Change members from across the various industries we work within, the session paid particular attention to incoming changes regarding Extended Producer Responsibility, Deposit Return Schemes, Right to Repair, the Plastic Packaging Tax, and Advertising Standards and the UK’s clamp down on greenwashing.

Mike told attendees – community members form the likes of Eco Friendly Card Company, Character World, Roy Lowe & Sons, and Rainbow Designs – that each will affect licensing, toys, gift, and other industries in “some guise or another” and that each will bear relevance on business as we charge forwards into 2024.

While much of the details remains woolly, laws around Right to Repair and Deposit Return Schemes for instance will impact players in spaces like food & beverage licensing (who will need to keep an ear to the ground when it comes to the introduction of DPS on food and drink packaging) or those with certain ‘mechanisms’ for delivering goods to consumers in packaging that fall under new laws to extend the life of materials and products.

What unites all members, however, whether they are from the greetings card industry or the licensing business, is Extended Producer Responsibility, a new legislative measure that will effect and encompass all packaging – not just plastic – and will be in place by 2025.

“This is coming for all types of packaging,” Mike reiterated. “It doesn’t matter if your packaging is plastic or cardboard, there will be a cost attached – delivered through EPR – that will place the financial burden of those end-of-life processes (waste management systems) on the producer of the product. The brand owner.”

Exactly what metrics will be used for determining who pays what, particularly when comparing plastic use versus cardboard use in packaging is yet to be detailed fully. However, it is strongly believed that much of the measurement will be down to weight of materials used with the recyclability of that material taken into consideration when tax is applied.

Mike went on to underscore the importance of collecting data now ready for when the financial element of the EPR regulation comes into force in 2025.

The Legislative Landscape

The legislative landscape is one in a constant state of flux as details get eked across not only the UK but the EU, too where many of the measures are being adopted first under the EU Green Deal. Already this week, we’ve seen the incoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive delayed by two years in the EU to ‘give businesses breathing space’ as they embed the initial wave of European Sustainability Reporting Standards.

Meanwhile, the UK has had its turn at kicking the can of legislation down the road itself delaying the introduction of the Extended Producer Responsibility tax from what was initially a date in 2023 to 2025. Companies are expected to now be actively collecting their data on packaging and materials used in preparation for the launch of the financial element next year.

But keeping on top of this changing world of regulation is hard. As such, Products of Change wants to help its members stay as much on top of it as possible and will be hosting Packaging Legislation working group sessions online every six weeks to offer members the latest updates.

Alongside this, when Products of Change’s new website launches in the next week, POC Members will be able to book in 15 to 30-minute sessions with the Products of Change advisors for one-to-one consultation and question-answering.

Products of Change, of course, continues to host its educational resources online, including recorded Working Group sessions such as this week’s Packaging Legislation update which can be viewed by Products of Change members here.