中文Print and packaging industry participants gathered in Melbourne and Sydney for Metsa Board’s Circular Packaging & Sustainability Seminars, using the forum to explore where growth lies in fibre-based packaging. Now in their second year, the seminars brought customers, converters, printers, merchants and brand owners into the same room to discuss design efficiency, certification, due diligence and the practical challenges of meeting rising sustainability expectations.
The backdrop is clear: packaging continues to be one of the major growth areas for print businesses across Australia and New Zealand, even as converters, merchants and brand owners face mounting pressure to understand sustainability, compliance and material performance. The seminars offered a structured path through that complexity, moving from board selection and packaging design through to sustainability performance, certification, due diligence and government regulation.
Kellie Northwood, CEO of the Visual Media Association (VMA), captured the value of the format. “What made these sessions valuable was bringing brand owners, manufacturers, sustainability leaders, forestry and the fibre supply chain into the same room,” she said. “We may come at packaging from different parts of the value chain, however there is significant common ground: we all want sustainable packaging, credible supply chains and regulation that delivers genuine environmental outcomes.”
A central theme was that sustainable packaging performance depends on a combination of decisions rather than a single solution. Material selection, carton structure, converting consistency, recyclability and supply-chain documentation all shape the final result. Presentations highlighted how lightweight fresh-fibre paperboards can reduce material use while maintaining stiffness and strength, with benefits for transport weight, waste reduction and carbon outcomes.
For printers and converters, the production-efficiency link was especially relevant. Consistent paperboard quality and tight tolerances mean faster running, fewer stoppages, fewer adjustments and less waste. The design session, led by Marko Leiviska, designer at the Metsa Board Excellence Centre, used European examples to show how structural improvements can enhance consumer appeal, cut material use and improve functionality while still considering recyclability and end-of-life outcomes.
Responsible sourcing and credible certification received strong emphasis. Matt de Jongh from Responsible Wood and PEFC outlined how sustainable forest management and Chain of Custody certification support traceability, legality, independent auditing and confidence across the fibre value chain, positioning certification as part of a broader shared responsibility involving forests, communities, climate and supply chains.
Northwood reinforced VMA’s support for regulation that keeps illegally harvested fibre out of Australia and improves packaging outcomes, provided it is risk-based, proportionate and makes use of credible certification already operating in the supply chain. “Strong environmental regulation and a strong manufacturing industry should not be competing objectives,” she argued, calling for industry and government to work together so policy delivers real environmental results without simply adding another layer of compliance.
The final sessions connected specifications, certification and declarations into a practical support pathway for customers navigating requirements such as the EU’s PPWR and Australia’s Illegal Logging Prohibition Act. Rather than treating compliance as a separate exercise, the seminar framed it as part of the same conversation as design, fibre sourcing and print production. The takeaway for the wider packaging value chain is that fibre-based packaging is not only a materials story but also a production, customer-service and compliance story. Converters, printers and merchants are increasingly part of brand-owner conversations about packaging that performs, carries credible sustainability credentials and can be backed by reliable documentation. By bringing different parts of the value chain into one discussion, the Metsa seminars showed how circular packaging is shaped through shared decisions on design, fibre, compliance and collaboration, and why Australia’s print sector sees fibre-based packaging as a genuine growth engine rather than a compliance burden.
The seminars also highlighted a subtle but important point about competitiveness: sustainability done well is a productivity strategy, not just a compliance cost. Lighter board lowers freight and handling expense, tighter tolerances cut press stoppages, and credible certification shortens the sales cycle with large brand owners who now audit their packaging supply chains. Converters that internalize this link can price more confidently and win business that penalizes laggards. The VMA’s framing, that strong regulation and a strong manufacturing sector need not conflict, reflects a maturing industry view in which policy and commercial interest align around verified, lower-impact packaging. For Australian and New Zealand printers, where distance from export markets magnifies logistics cost, the efficiency gains from better board and design are doubly valuable. The Metsa seminars thus did more than share technical detail; they helped reframe fibre-based packaging as a strategic growth platform, one where the print community’s production discipline becomes a genuine competitive advantage rather than a passive cost center.
For the print sector, the seminars reinforced a message that is easy to state but harder to operationalize: sustainability and profitability are not in tension when designed together. The hardest part is often internal, aligning sales, production and procurement around a longer-term view rather than the lowest line-item cost. The VMA’s advocacy for risk-based, proportionate regulation also matters, because poorly designed rules can impose cost without environmental benefit, whereas credible certification already in the supply chain can satisfy both compliance and conscience. Australia’s geographic isolation, which raises logistics cost, makes the efficiency gains from lightweight board and tight tolerances especially valuable, turning a sustainability choice into a freight saving. The Metsa seminars succeeded by putting those linkages in front of the whole value chain at once, so that no single participant had to argue the case alone. That collective framing is likely why fibre-based packaging is increasingly seen locally as opportunity rather than obligation.
