As the collective US consciousness slowly accepts the idea of sustainable products, CPGs and retailers are responding to where shipments of sustainable packaging have exceeded $37 billion in 2005, according to a new report from market researcher Specialists in Business Information (www.sbireports.com).

SBI projects the market supply for sustainable packaging will surpass $42 billion in 2010. Sustainable plastics, which grew by 5 percent a year from 2001 to 2005, are expected to continue to grow at a similar rate through 2010 as demand for both rigid and flexible forms continues to increase, and plastics, along with metals, continue to eat into the market share of glass. Flexible packaging is also projected to grow at over 3 percent a year during the next five years based on the success of standup pouches and retort packaging.

Not surprisingly, the report calls into question the whole notion of sustainability in its own right, clarifying the terminologies used to determine which products fit into an eco-friendly profile and which do not. Where many consumers may consider only biodegradable packaging as truly “green,” industry-wide the notion of sustainability is much broader.

“For most food/bev packaging products, the recyclability and reusability of a material is paramount to its acceptance as sustainable,” notes SBI managing editor Tatjana Meerman. “Other eco-friendly factors, such as the energy used to produce packaging from raw versus recycled materials, transportation costs, and costs to recycle are all factored into the discussion of sustainability.”