Despite the incredible sustainability strides from companies like Amazon, Walmart, CVS Health, and Target in recent years, retailers face a unique limitation to scaling sustainable packaging: The ceiling for progress across retailers’ private label brands is often limited by the formats that their packaging suppliers produce.
That’s where the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s Retailer Forum comes in. Working in concert with the nation’s largest retailers, SPC has formed the Retailer Forum with member companies Amazon, Walmart, CVS Health, and Target. In its inaugural project, the Forum is working together to address a specific bottleneck in these retailers’ packaging progress: scaling truly sustainable flexible packaging films with low-barrier requirements.
Flexible films with low-barrier requirements are an increasingly common format, used across everything from the polybags protecting durable goods to refill packs for household products. A more sustainable — recyclable, compostable, reusable, or refillable — version of this format used across private label brands would unlock tremendous untapped potential to keep materials in circulation and out of the landfill.
“With this project, we’ll get to see the power of SPC membership at play,” said SPC Director Olga Kachook. “Our retailer members came to us with a very specific challenge — and now we’re calling on suppliers, who represent 25% of SPC membership, to help us solve this persistent sustainable packaging problem.”
Introducing a Retailer-Led Innovation Opportunity
Collaborating with the founding member companies in the SPC Retailer Forum, we’ve launched a call for R&D submissions from suppliers to solve one of these retailers’ most pressing flexible packaging challenges.
Between now and December 19, 2025, suppliers can submit proposed formats that meet the requirements for flexible packaging with low-barrier requirements as outlined in our comprehensive Request For R&D Submission for Packaging Film Suppliers brief. The Retailer Forum is seeking tangible flexible packaging concepts that can be converted and submitted for further testing by material recovery facilities (MRFs) and other third parties.
Why This Matters Now
Across the U.S., flexible films are used for everything from cheese packaging to cough drop bags, yet closing the circularity loop for these materials depends on industry collaboration toward innovation. Right now, flexible plastic packaging made from anything other than polyethylene — including polypropylene or multi-material constructions — cannot be collected or processed through existing Store Drop-off systems.
In accelerating the adoption of a sustainable flexible film with low-barrier requirements, this project will address several converging pressures for the nation’s largest retailers, including:
- Increasing regulatory requirements
- Emerging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) eco-modulation incentives across states
- Growing customer preferences and awareness of plastic waste
- Corporate packaging and carbon reduction goals
- California’s SB 343 and SB 54 requirements, including achieving ≥30% plastic recycling rates by 2028
What’s Next for this Retailer Forum’s Project
Suppliers interested in participating can review the full R&D Brief before entering submissions by December 19, 2025. SPC will then review submissions, narrow down respondents, and selected suppliers will be able to present concepts at SPC Impact 2026 in front of member companies, including the nation’s largest retailers.
Interested parties are encouraged to review the brief in full and prepare submissions.
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