Here’s Help for Your Packaging EPR Compliance

In recent years, global waste-management regulations have been honed to put more onus on consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to create a responsible circular economy. Bearing the responsibility of a product’s lifecycle can be exceedingly tricky, especially when it comes to packaging.

That’s why consultants specializing in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) have become an invaluable resource to companies seeking guidance in navigating the ever-changing (and sometimes conflicting) laws, programs, and policies associated with responsible stewardship beginning with a product’s design through to its disposal.

The need for outside consultation is high, says Catherine Johnson, a California environmental attorney with over 30 years of environmental compliance experience and the founder and CEO of EPR Group Consulting, which represents a range of clients including packaging companies and entities in the CPG food and beverage industry. 

“More and more companies are realizing they need to start preparing for compliance and are seeking assistance,” she says. “These programs are extremely complicated, and it is difficult to manage without help.”

In addition to helping companies untangle the ramifications of affiliations with PRO and Circular Action Alliance (CAA), the most pressing issue Johnson’s packaging clients are concerned with right now is the EPR programs from the marketing perspectives of meeting customer demands and maintaining competitiveness while also exploring their own responsibility for the packaging they use when selling their own products/packaging. “They are interested both as a producer and on behalf of their customers,” she says.

Here are 13 EPR packaging compliance specialists.

The only constant going forward may well be change, especially as complications arise as more states adopt their own, unique EPR programs. To that end, Packaging Digest has compiled the following list of US-based and international consultants to help you achieve your EPR packaging goals: