The EU Regulation on packaging and packaging waste – what is coming, what will remain, and for whom? – Part 2

published on 20 December 2024 | reading time approx. 2 minutes

Transactions are determined by value-creating criteria, particularly the risks identified and assessed in the process of due diligence, another European Regulation could now find its way into future due diligence audits: The EU Regulation on packaging and packaging waste was adopted by the European Parliament on April 24, 2024, and is pending formal approval by the European Council.

In this second part of the article series, we take a closer look at the parties affected by the future European packaging and packaging waste Regulation, with the aim of raising awareness among the affected companies, helping them to prepare for the foreseeable additional requirements and take appropriate compliance measures.

The EU Regulation is intended to apply, among other cases, to all packaging placed on the market in the European Union. “Packaging” within the meaning of this regulation includes sales packaging, outer packaging and transport packaging. Due to this broad definition, a potentially very large number of people will be affected by the requirements of the regulation. The regulation refers to these persons as “economic operators” and covers all producers, suppliers, importers, distributors and final distributors involved in placing packaging on the market.

The so-called fulfillment service providers, who to a certain extent can take on the respective obligations of the economic operators in their place, will not be discussed in detail at this point.

Target group of the EU Regulation

Producers, importers and distributors are manufacturers if they are established in an EU Member State and, in the same territory, regardless of the sales method, provide packaging in the EU for the first time, provide packaged products or unpack packaged products, but without being the end user. They are also manufacturers if they are established in a EU Member State or a third country and make transport, (reusable) service or primary production packaging or products that are packaged available in another EU Member State directly to end users for the first time, i.e. placing them on the market.

Producers, importers and distributors are each defined differently. A producer – as the name suggests – is any natural or legal person who manufactures packaging or packaged products, i.e. develops or commissions their first-time production. An importer places packaging or packaging material from the EU or a third country on the market as a natural or legal person established in the EU.

The (end) distributor, on the other hand, is neither a producer nor an importer. A distributor is a natural or legal person in the supply chain who makes packaging or packaged products available on the market, delivers them to the end user or makes them available to the end user. This includes not only online retailers or online marketplaces such as eBay, but also packaging purchased from the distributor for filling by a product – including the universally popular coffee “to-go”.

Consequences for companies

Even from the above brief description of the economic operators, it is clear that the personal scope of the upcoming EU Regulation on packaging and packaging waste – as it currently stands – is very extensive and basically covers not only all companies active in the packag-ing industry, but rather every industry and every company that usually comes into contact with packaging and packaging waste.

The implementation of new provisions regarding packaging will therefore, after the introduction of the EU Regulation on Packaging and Packaging Waste, in all prospect play a role in the transaction business – for example in (technical) due diligence – as well as in the area of compliance/corporate housekeeping. The latter applies in particular with regard to the information and registration obligations for companies that are now planned.