Six of the world’s largest consumer-goods companies are joining forces to solve a packaging problem that none of them believes is ready for large-scale commercialization yet.

Unilever, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Mars have become founding members of the PaperFlex Consortium, convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and powered by (RE)SET.

The objective is to accelerate paper-based alternatives for small flexible plastic formats such as:

sachets,

wrappers,

and pouches.

But the most important part of the announcement is almost the opposite of the headline.

The consortium itself acknowledges that responsible paper-based flexible packaging still does not exist at the performance, cost and scale needed for most applications.

That makes PaperFlex less a celebration of paper replacing plastic and more a coordinated attempt to close the technical gap between the two materials.

Flexible plastic is difficult to replace because it does so much with so little

Small-format flexible packaging is one of the industry’s hardest end-of-life problems.

It uses little material, provides strong barriers and can be produced rapidly at very low unit cost.

But those same lightweight formats are often difficult to collect and recycle economically, particularly in markets with limited formal waste infrastructure.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation describes flexible plastic packaging as the fastest-growing plastic packaging format worldwide and says scaled recycling solutions are still not widely available.

Paper appears attractive because fibre already has established recycling systems in many markets and can potentially biodegrade if it unintentionally leaks into the environment.

But replacing a plastic pouch with paper creates another engineering problem.

Untreated paper does not naturally provide the same:

moisture barrier,

oxygen barrier,

grease resistance,

tear resistance,

or heat-sealing performance.

Those functions have to be added back.

The coating is where much of the problem moves

PaperFlex members plan to jointly fund and test technologies including biodegradable coatings and new barrier systems, while also examining performance on commercial packaging machinery.

This is critical.

A coating can make paper perform more like plastic.

But if the coating is:

difficult to repulp,

persistent after environmental leakage,

chemically problematic,

or too expensive,

the material substitution may simply exchange one sustainability problem for another.

The Foundation’s own March report says responsible paper flexibles need to satisfy six criteria covering sourcing, production, technical and economic performance, local recyclability, chemical safety and biodegradability, while fitting within a broader circular-economy strategy.

That is a much higher bar than simply increasing paper content.

Cost remains one of the biggest obstacles

The economic gap is particularly significant.

The Foundation estimates that today’s home-compostable paper-based flexible solutions can cost roughly two to six times more than comparable plastic packaging.

Several factors contribute:

more expensive materials,

additional barrier layers,

slower converting speeds,

and potentially the need to modify existing packaging machinery.

That explains why six competitors are collaborating.

If every FMCG company independently evaluates the same coating technologies, runs similar machinery trials and discovers the same failures, development becomes unnecessarily expensive.

Shared pre-competitive R&D can spread that cost and create a larger demand signal for material and equipment suppliers.

Scaling paper could create another resource problem

Paper substitution also has an upstream consequence.

More paper packaging means more demand for fibre.

That is why the consortium is explicitly including responsible fibre sourcing as part of its framework.

The Foundation warns that poorly managed substitution could create new impacts through deforestation, water consumption or other resource pressures.

This point is particularly important because PaperFlex is focused partly on markets with high plastic leakage.

Simply replacing billions of lightweight plastic sachets with heavier fibre structures without considering fibre supply, transport and manufacturing impacts would be an incomplete sustainability strategy.

Paper is therefore being treated as one possible solution, not the universal solution.

Product protection still comes first

Packaging also cannot become less effective in the name of sustainability.

A wrapper that reduces plastic but increases:

food spoilage,

moisture damage,

product contamination,

or breakage

may create a larger environmental burden elsewhere.

The Foundation therefore requires paper alternatives to continue meeting product protection, food safety and consumer requirements.

This is where higher-barrier products become particularly difficult.

The Foundation’s technical work suggests that low-barrier applications are likely to transition first, while products requiring strong oxygen or moisture protection—including greasy foods and liquids—will remain harder.

That means there probably will not be one universal “paper film.”

Different products will require different combinations of:

paper,

coatings,

adhesives,

sealing technology,

and machine settings.

Recycling infrastructure still matters after the material changes

Another misconception is that switching to paper automatically solves collection.

It does not.

PaperFlex specifically targets solutions that should be recyclable locally as collection systems improve, while biodegradability is intended as a fallback for material that unintentionally leaks into the environment.

That distinction matters.

A technically repulpable wrapper still needs:

consumer collection,

sorting,

a suitable recovered-paper stream,

and a mill willing to process it.

The Foundation therefore says stronger collection and recycling systems must develop alongside new materials.

Biodegradability is not meant to replace recycling, and it certainly is not permission for uncontrolled disposal.

The criticism of paper substitution is therefore partly built into PaperFlex itself

Packaging Insights quoted Greenpeace USA warning that simply switching from virgin plastic to paper can shift environmental burdens elsewhere.

That criticism is important.

But it is also notable that the consortium’s own design framework acknowledges essentially the same risk.

The Foundation explicitly warns that poorly designed paper alternatives could create:

forest impacts,

high water consumption,

persistent coatings,

or other unintended problems.

This makes the real question more useful than “paper or plastic?”

It becomes:

In which applications does responsibly designed paper create a genuinely better system than the flexible plastic it replaces?

The consortium is evidence that the answer is not ready yet

Paper-based flexible packaging is advancing quickly.

Several brands already have paper wrappers on shelves.

Coating developers are improving barrier performance.

Paper mills are developing stronger lightweight grades.

Packaging-machine manufacturers are adapting equipment.

But the existence of PaperFlex tells us something important.

If a scalable, inexpensive, high-barrier, recyclable and biodegradable paper flexible already existed, six of the world’s largest FMCG companies would not need a shared R&D programme to develop one.

They would buy it.

So the real significance of PaperFlex is not that paper has won the flexible-packaging transition.

It is that some of the world’s largest packaging users now consider the technical gap important enough to tackle collectively.

Success will therefore not be measured by how many plastic packages simply become paper.

It will be measured by whether those new structures can simultaneously deliver:

product protection, industrial runnability, responsible fibre sourcing, competitive cost, recycling compatibility and credible end-of-life performance.

Until those conditions come together, paper remains a promising alternative for selected flexible-packaging applications—not an automatic replacement for plastic.

Last Updated on 21/09/2026 by Jota Machinery