Co-creation workshops to achieve a more sustainable packaging industry

InformPack project co-financed by EIT Food seeks to generate participation activities and strategies for the creation of specific innovative actions in food packaging and thereby support the transition to a more sustainable packaging system in the food industry at a European level.

One of the pillars of the project is to include all the key agents in the search for challenges and solutions in this context, and to achieve this, EROSKI and Bioazul have developed a series of co-creation workshops during the month of November in Bilbao.

Co-creating as a path to a more sustainable system.

Specifically, 8 workshops have been organized, 4 of them with companies, suppliers and research centers and 4 with consumers. In which a hundred people have participated who have analyzed the influence of packaging in the choice of the product at the time of purchase and its subsequent elimination.

The information collected will be used to create actions, tools and strategies that can influence public behavior and provide solutions that allow the transition to a more sustainable European food packaging ecosystem, reflecting problems, public demands and industry needs in our country.

Committed to the environment, EROSKI works to remain the leading group in the sector in reducing the environmental impact of plastic. Its goal is to achieve a reduction of at least 20% of the tons of single-use plastics from its packaging by 2025.

Conclusions of the workshops

Most of the agents involved agree that the general context is favorable for accelerating and consolidating the transformation that has taken place in the field of packaging and packaging management in favor of reducing environmental impact.

On the one hand, the consumer seems increasingly aware and willing to change their consumption habits; and on the other, the industry seems to be making a determined effort to advance in the territory of sustainability. At the same time, administrations at different levels are driving regulatory and fiscal innovations to ensure that the process does not stop.

However, a set of challenges and difficulties that could mean that the transformation does not live up to expectations, both at the supply and demand levels, should not be overlooked, including the lack of legislative unity at the European level and the difficulties implementing new requirements.

To solve these challenges, the participants in the sessions shared different strategies, ideas and solutions. From the Informpack project we work to face the challenges, as well as to develop the solutions provided by industry and consumers. And we look forward to continuing to do so, moving forward with the transition to a more sustainable packaging system over the next few years.