When you've covered an industry (packaging and converting) as long as I have (more than 20 years), you start to get a little cynical every time you hear about the latest “hot” trend. It starts with a couple quiet press releases, for example, from the CPGs on some new product or package design.Then, the conferences start— first one, then three—appearing to suggest that the industry better get on the bandwagon of the aforementioned “trend” or be left hopelessly behind.

So, I didn't know what exactly to make of the 2nd Sustainable Packaging Forum before I attended it last month in St. Paul, MN. Having been around packaging-business journalism during the “packaging is bad; let's recycle everything” phase of the 1980s, I braced for the worst. Now, after that intensive day-and-a-half of speakers up and down the supply chain, I'm much less cynical but still wary.

First, what is sustainable packaging anyway? According the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, co-sponsor of the conference along with Packaging Strategies, sustainable packaging is beneficial, safe and healthy for individuals and communities throughout its lifecycle; is sourced, manufactured, transported and recycled using renewable energy; and maximizes the use of renewable/recycled source materials.

This is certainly a succinct definition for a complex concept but one worthy of attention from all packaging users. And that's where the trouble starts. On one end, you have the vast majority of consumers who rank a product's environmental impact far down the list from such purchasing priorities as price, taste and convenience. In other words, it's not very important. Converters and some of their raw-material suppliers are nearly as clueless on sustainability.

Retailers are another story. Again, Wal-Mart is leading the charge with its goal of reducing the packaging for merchandise sold domestically by 5 percent by February 2008. Naturally, CPGs—your customers—will have to follow suit if they want to succeed with the world's biggest retailer...and others.

Doing something good for the environment on which we all depend is certainly not a bad thing. As always, the devil is in the details. Just how are we supposed to continue our enviable record of providing goods to the American public, safely and at a fair price, while everyone along the supply chain makes a living, and still attain a goal being pushed by the nation's largest retailer, for reasons that may have as much to do with its own bottom line than with saving the environment?

Without real understanding by everyone involved, sustainable packaging just might be the latest “tree hugger fad” instead of really...sustainable.