With increased environmental concerns worldwide and the need to reduce toxic emissions, green packaging is increasingly being adopted by the F&B, healthcare, and personal care industries. This has resulted in higher demand for green or sustainable packaging that is expected to continue according to a new report released yesterday (August 5) by TechNavio, London, U.K.

In this research, green packaging is defined as being produced from sustainable, renewable, and recyclable raw materials. Green packaging technology uses materials such as paper, plastic, metal, and glass, which can be easily bent or molded as needed. One of the major advantages of green packaging is that it produces fewer toxic emissions.

The green packaging market in the U.S. is projected to grow in this report at a CAGR of 6.16% over the period of 2014-2019. 

Market challenges for the paper industry include what the report identifies as a key market trend: emergence of bio-degradable plastics not sourced from organic fiber/pulp. Currently there is also a lack of awareness among consumers identified by the report. If this is not properly address by the industry it can lead to limited research and development as well as lacking preparedness for large scale production of an adequate variety of green offerings for different industries and commercial sectors. Innovation is currently the key demand outlined by the report. Companies will seek employees for the development of newly effective, increasingly competitive green packaging solutions. The most prominent paper companies identified in the report are Georgia-Pacific (Atlanta, Ga., USA) and MeadWestVaco, now WestRock (Richmond, Vir., USA).