For years, packaging sustainability was often reduced to a relatively simple question:

Which material should we use instead?

Plastic to paper.

Virgin material to recycled content.

Heavy packaging to lightweight packaging.

Billerud’s new Packaging Tomorrow 2026 trend report suggests that this way of thinking is becoming too narrow.

The paper and packaging producer identifies six trends ranging from circularity and lightweighting to digital traceability, accessibility and changing consumer experience. But the common thread is more important than any individual trend.

Packaging companies increasingly have to optimize several competing requirements at the same time.

A lighter package is not necessarily better if it fails.

A fibre-based structure is not automatically circular.

A technically recyclable pack has limited value if the local collection and sorting system cannot recover it.

And additional functionality—from QR codes to easy-open features—still has to work without creating unnecessary material complexity.

That is why Billerud’s description of the market shifting from “ambition to execution” is probably the most useful part of the report.

The six trends are really six design constraints

Billerud organizes its outlook around six themes:

Circularity Reality — moving from theoretical recyclability toward packaging that works in actual collection and sorting systems.

Mastering Minimalism — reducing material without reducing protection.

Material Matters — continued movement toward renewable fibre-based alternatives.

Packaging as Platform — using packaging for digital information, traceability and interaction.

Accessibility Acceleration — making packs easier to handle and open, particularly as populations age.

Elevated Experience — maintaining stronger branding and consumer experience even as packaging is redesigned around sustainability.

Seen individually, none of these is particularly surprising.

Together, however, they expose the difficulty now facing packaging designers.

The same box may need to become:

lighter,

more recyclable,

easier to open,

digitally traceable,

visually distinctive,

and no more expensive.

That is a much harder engineering brief than simply replacing one substrate with another.

Lightweighting has reached its practical limit: product protection

Billerud puts particular emphasis on lightweighting.

That makes sense.

Using less material can reduce:

raw-material demand,

packaging weight,

transport load,

and potentially carbon emissions.

But there is a physical limit.

Packaging exists primarily to protect the product.

If reducing paperboard grammage causes:

crushing,

puncture,

moisture damage,

poor stacking,

or increased product loss,

the material saving can quickly become counterproductive.

Billerud’s Timothy Nordin makes this point directly: lightweighting needs to preserve packaging performance because product waste can carry a larger environmental impact than the material saved.

This is particularly relevant to fibre packaging.

The opportunity is not simply to use thinner paper.

It is to improve strength-to-weight performance so fewer grams of fibre can deliver the same functional result.

That puts more pressure on:

fibre quality,

papermaking,

board structure,

converting,

coatings,

and package design.

Lightweighting is therefore becoming an engineering problem rather than a purchasing target.

Fibre substitution faces exactly the same constraint

Billerud naturally highlights the continued growth of fibre-based packaging.

It is also important to remember that Billerud is a major producer of paper and packaging materials, so the “paperization” trend comes from a company with a direct commercial position in that transition.

The underlying movement is nevertheless real.

Brands continue exploring paper and paperboard as alternatives to fossil-based packaging, particularly where recycling systems for fibre are already well established.

But fibre substitution is increasingly being tested more critically.

The question is no longer:

Can we make this package from paper?

It is:

Can we make it from paper while maintaining the same performance, using an acceptable amount of material, running efficiently on existing equipment and delivering a credible recycling route?

That distinction matters.

A fibre package requiring substantial:

plastic coating,

lamination,

adhesive,

or additional weight

may still be the right solution.

But its sustainability case has to be demonstrated rather than assumed.

Circularity is moving beyond the word “recyclable”

Perhaps the strongest of Billerud’s six trends is what it calls Circularity Reality.

For years, packaging developers could focus primarily on design-for-recycling.

Does the material theoretically work in an existing recycling process?

That remains important.

But regulation and EPR systems increasingly require companies to think beyond theoretical compatibility toward:

collection,

sorting,

reprocessing,

and actual secondary-material markets.

Billerud describes the trend as moving toward packaging that works in real-world collection and sorting systems rather than only appearing recyclable on paper.

That is a significant shift.

A package might pass a laboratory repulpability test.

If consumers cannot put it into their local paper stream, circularity remains incomplete.

Likewise, collection alone is insufficient if mills reject the resulting material.

The packaging industry is therefore gradually being forced to distinguish between:

recyclable by design

and

recycled in practice.

That makes circularity more operational—and considerably harder to claim.

Regulation is making those compromises financially relevant

The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation is one reason this conversation has accelerated.

Its design-for-recycling requirements will become increasingly important toward 2030, with packaging expected to meet minimum recyclability performance requirements. Billerud is already positioning its European fibre portfolio around recognized recyclability testing and future PPWR design requirements.

But the regulatory effect goes beyond recyclability.

Packaging decisions increasingly influence:

EPR fees,

material use,

market access,

reporting requirements,

and compliance costs.

That means sustainability no longer sits only with the ESG department.

A material choice can affect procurement.

A coating can affect recyclability.

A heavier structure affects logistics.

A poorly designed pack can affect EPR cost.

And a packaging failure affects both customer experience and product waste.

This is why Billerud’s Anna Jonhed describes packaging as both a strategic business and sustainability issue.

Digital packaging creates another layer of complexity

One of the more interesting trends in the report is Packaging as Platform.

Billerud highlights the growing role of QR codes and other digital elements in giving consumers information about:

product content,

origin,

sustainability,

and potentially traceability.

That creates another packaging requirement that often receives less attention.

Print quality increasingly has a machine-readable function.

A QR code is not useful simply because it appears on the pack.

It needs sufficient:

contrast,

registration,

surface quality,

and print consistency

to scan reliably throughout the package lifecycle.

This means digital traceability creates requirements farther upstream for paper and board producers as well.

Surface properties and print performance become data-quality issues, not just aesthetic ones.

Accessibility complicates lightweighting again

The report also identifies accessibility as a major packaging trend.

This is especially relevant as populations age.

A package optimized only for material reduction could become:

harder to grip,

harder to tear,

harder to read,

or more difficult to reseal.

Again, one sustainability target can conflict with another user requirement.

Easy-opening systems may require:

perforations,

tear strips,

tabs,

additional components,

or structural changes.

Those features can affect:

material use,

manufacturing complexity,

and recycling.

So accessibility becomes another factor that needs to be designed into the package rather than added later.

Sustainability does not remove packaging’s marketing function

Billerud’s sixth trend, Elevated Experience, is another useful reminder.

Brands still expect packaging to sell products.

A sustainability redesign that produces a dull, fragile or confusing package may struggle commercially even if its environmental metrics improve.

E-commerce has intensified this issue.

For many products, the package is now both:

transport protection

and

the first physical brand interaction after an online purchase.

That means companies are simultaneously asking packaging to become simpler in material architecture while doing more in terms of communication and customer experience.

Again, this is optimization rather than substitution.

The most important trend may therefore be integration

The six themes point toward the same conclusion.

Packaging development is becoming less compartmentalized.

A sustainability team cannot optimize recyclability independently from engineering.

Engineering cannot lightweight a package without consulting logistics.

Marketing cannot add finishes without considering recycling.

Procurement cannot select the cheapest board without considering machine performance.

And packaging development cannot ignore EPR and regulatory requirements until the design is already finished.

Those functions increasingly have to make decisions together.

This may be the bigger meaning behind the industry’s shift from ambition to execution.

Most large companies already have packaging sustainability targets.

The difficult work now is making those targets survive contact with:

factory equipment,

supply chains,

customers,

regulators,

recycling systems,

and economics.

Fibre will grow where it solves the whole equation

Billerud understandably sees continued opportunity for paper and board.

But the strongest case for fibre will not come from the statement that it is renewable.

It will come from applications where fibre can simultaneously deliver:

low material use,

sufficient strength,

product protection,

efficient converting,

credible recyclability,

competitive economics,

and acceptable consumer experience.

Where those conditions exist, fibre has a strong opportunity.

Where they do not, simply increasing paper content may not improve the overall system.

That is why the report’s most useful message is also its least dramatic.

The future of packaging will not be decided by optimizing one sustainability metric.

It will be decided by how successfully companies manage the trade-offs between all of them.

That is a much harder challenge than announcing another sustainability target.

It is also where the packaging industry’s real competition is increasingly moving.

Last Updated on 18/09/2026 by Jota Machinery