Corporate Sustainability Isn’t Going Away — It’s Maturing 

If you only read the headlines around corporate sustainability goals and commitments, you might think that the era of corporate sustainability is over. During SPC Advance 2025, Net Positive Author Andrew Winston and Project Drawdown Executive Director Dr. Jonathan Foley explored the question looming over the sustainability industry: Is this all over? Have we lost the plot? 

Far from it. Sustainability isn’t over, it’s maturing, and as Winston said, “While the work may be quieter, the work continues.” 

Even if it doesn’t always feel like it, the building blocks of a circular packaging economy are aligning more than they ever have before. As corporate sustainability matures, we’re unpacking the “gigatrends” shaping packaging, and how you can turn them into strong sustainable packaging strategies.  

Sustainability Commitments Haven’t Collapsed, They’ve Matured 

If you’ve seen headlines lamenting missed sustainability goals or abandoned climate targets, you’re not alone. These setbacks don’t tell the full story, though.  

“In chess, if you lose one piece, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost the game.” Foley said. “We need to see the full board. And if you do, you’ll see that climate progress is still happening… It seems to be accelerating.” Here’s how we know he’s right: 

According to Winston’s research: 

• Just 13% of sampled companies are retreating on their goals, with 32% accelerating them 

• 63% of Forbes Global 2000 companies have a net-zero target 

• A resounding 99% of business leaders claim they intend to ‘maintain or expand their commitments’ to sustainability 

This research tells a better, albeit more nuanced, story than the headlines: Corporate sustainability isn’t dead. It’s entering a new era of smarter, more strategic solutions. Professionals are prioritizing progress over perfection to build better systems without compromising consumer trust. “It is not game over,” Foley said. “It’s game on.” 

The Burden of Proof for Sustainability Has Always Been High… 

There’s a paradox in corporate sustainability: The burden of proof has always been higher for sustainability teams, but still, sustainability has always fundamentally created business value. 

Historically, P&L sheets haven’t been able to account for the progress professionals make on reducing carbon emissions or improving recyclability across their packaging portfolios. Right now, it can feel like the burden of proof demonstrating the value of sustainability is even higher: 92% of people believe in climate change, but only 2% rank it as a top issue, according to Foley.  Brands are now made to be careful about how they message sustainability. And now, companies are balancing sustainability with an affordability crisis.  

Thankfully, sustainability professionals have a rich history of overcoming these hurdles — and packaging policies are making the ROI of sustainable packaging even more abundantly clear.  

…But The ROI Is About to Get Clearer Than Ever 

Across the packaging industry, new state Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and labeling laws are making investments in sustainability more tangible than ever. With eco-modulation schemes across seven U.S. states set to financially reward environmentally friendly packaging and penalize packaging that’s not recyclable, reusable, refillable, or compostable, the time to re-examine your packaging portfolio with an eye on sustainability is here.  

This trend isn’t localized to packaging. In sustainability, we’re seeing “gigatrends” quietly overhaul entire systems toward circularity. Take the clean energy transition as an example. During Winston and Foley’s presentations, we learned that in OECD countries, “nearly 90% of [electricity] growth came from solar and wind,” while coal and nuclear power declined. Globally, in the first half of 2025, solar and wind provided all the growth in generation and coal and oil dropped. In 2024, the UK closed its last coal power plant.  

“These gigatrends are bigger than any reactionary politics,” Winston said. “They’re reshaping the world beneath us.” And they’re headed for packaging, too.  

Translating Gigatrends Into Packaging Strategy 

At SPC Advance, we saw that progress feels slow, even messy at the beginning, but then it becomes exponential. GreenBlue Executive Director Paul Nowak reminded us that we’re in that messy middle right now, but the path to progress is being laid by professionals like SPC members every day.   

With Winston’s insights in mind, here are some of the gigatrends and structural changes packaging teams can plan for: 

• Packaging Regulations: EPR is just getting started in the U.S., and teams can plan for more legislation regulating materials, labels, and claims.  

• Consumer Buy-In: When it comes to packaging, consumers remain focused on health consequences and product pricing, so packaging strategies must connect sustainability to these values to support buy-in or behavior change.  

• Generational Change: Younger consumers will continue demanding credible sustainability and evidence-backed environmental efforts. 

• Transparency: Teams should prepare for ongoing EPR reporting, emissions accounting, and strengthening expectations around packaging data transparency. 

Here’s how you can start: 

• Act early: Foley gave us a great framework, the “time value of carbon,” meant to demonstrate that “the earlier you invest [in sustainability], the bigger the impact is going to be.”  

• Act proactively: Anticipate gigatrends instead of reacting to them; build strategies for where the system is going (you can look to packaging policy parallels across the pond), not where it’s been. 

• Act collaboratively: During SPC Advance, Winston said, “Tomorrow’s initiatives will be mostly partnerships.” Progress will come from collective action across the value chain, and participation with SPC helps professionals work alongside peers navigating the same system-wide challenges. 

Despite setbacks or discouraging headlines, the signals for our industry are unmistakable: The transition to a circular packaging economy is underway, and sustainable packaging leaders like SPC members are driving that shift with the work they do every day.