The paper-based packaging industry today launched “The Responsible Package,” an industry-wide campaign developed to promote the versatile and sustainable packaging solutions provided by paper-based products. The campaign is designed to advance the leadership position of paper-based packaging within the broader packaging industry, and leverage stakeholder companies’ existing sustainable practices and resources to educate and inform packaged goods manufacturers and packagers.

The Responsible Package initiative supports paperboard, corrugated and paper bag products, and will further the paper-based packaging industry’s commitment to providing renewable, recyclable and sustainable packaging that also is reliable and economically viable.

“Paper, paperboard and corrugated are sustainable packaging solutions made from a renewable raw material and recycled at very high levels,” said Peter Heist, vice president of International Paper and chairman of the Paperboard Packaging Alliance. “As manufacturers and consumers increasingly seek environmentally friendly products, The Responsible Package campaign will provide packagers with the tools they need to make decisions that meet their sustainability goals.”

The campaign, funded by the Paperboard Packaging Alliance and the Corrugated Packaging Alliance, will raise awareness of the paper-based packaging industry’s sustainable practices and the responsibly made products it supplies. Additionally, it will champion the renewability of forest products, the high level of success in recycling paper-based products, and the versatility of paper-based packaging.

“The raw materials we use to make paper-based packaging are sustainably grown, managed and harvested specifically for the paper industry,” Heist said. “This renewable, natural resource is at the heart of sustainable packaging and paper goods.”

The paper-based packaging industry provides versatile packaging solutions to product manufacturers in the pharmaceutical and medical, food and beverage, and consumer goods industries, among others.