Chris Bradley 0:01 Welcome to the Sustainable Design Lab podcast brought to you by Veritiv. In this podcast, we explore the big ideas that are reshaping the future of packaging with comprehensive master classes and deep dives into a range of topic areas, including AI and automation, next generation packaging substrates like PHA, seaweed, and biopolymers, advances in sustainable cold chain, sustainable packaging trends, and even the regulations that are fostering a whole new era of innovation. Veritiv's sustainable design lab was created to cultivate innovation and help you make the transition to more sustainable packaging. My name is Chris Bradley. I lead the Sustainable Design Lab for Veritiv. The SDL, as we call it, is a 20,000 square foot r and d facility located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and I lead a team of more than 60 amazing packaging engineers, industrial designers, and sustainability experts that are all focused on driving packaging innovation. At the lab, we believe that one of the biggest drivers of packaging innovation in the coming decade will be EPR or extended producer responsibility laws. Companies like yours and mine will soon be paying millions of dollars a year in incremental fees to states like California, Colorado, and Oregon related to packaging waste. In fact, five US states have already passed DPR laws with an aim to collect fees from producers of packaging to pay for their ultimate end of life disposal. Now this is a monumental shift in responsibility that is gonna rock the packaging world like nothing that has ever come before. So regardless of your feelings about sustainability or climate change, these are real costs that are coming that can be avoided with sustainable design strategy, so I encourage you to embrace sustainable design. It is a real business opportunity. Alright. So as of March 2025, '5 US states have enacted extended producer responsibility laws for packaging material. These include Maine and Oregon, which enacted laws in 2021, Colorado and California, which enacted laws in 2022, and Minnesota, which just passed their law back in 2024. Now in addition to these enacted laws, several other states have already introduced or are considering introducing packaging EPR bills. For example, New York and New Jersey have pending EPR packaging bills, and Maryland and Illinois have conducted needs assessments to better understand their packaging waste management systems and recycling capabilities, which are typically seen as the precursors to adopting more formalized EPR legislation. So EPR for packaging is a really big deal, and it's something that everyone involved in packaging needs to understand. That's why we're thrilled to bring you this master class on EPR for packaging. It's a comprehensive, multipart series designed to help you prepare and prosper in this new world of packaging regulation. In this series, we're gonna take you from the EPR fundamentals to very specific state strategies for states like Oregon and California and Colorado. And then, ultimately, we're gonna show you how to hack these regulations through better sustainable design, minimizing costs, lightweighting products, maximizing incentives so that you can position your company as a leader in the sustainable packaging movement. So who should be listening? If you're a packaging designer or engineer, um, maybe you're a business owner or a marketing head, charge of your brand, maybe you work in supply chain, anyone in a company who is responsible for packaging, this is really important information. What you'll gain by going through this master class, you'll gain a clear understanding of how APR works, what are their definitions, and what are some of the strategies to minimize fees and avoid penalties. You'll get insight into two of the programs where we already have detailed program documents, including Oregon and Colorado, and we're gonna dive into how to redesign packaging to turn compliance into a cost savings opportunity. Okay. So here is a series overview. In part one, consider this to be EPR one zero one, the fundamentals. We're gonna understand the basics. We're gonna go through some key timelines. For example, you know, what is extended producer responsibility? Where did this all come from? We're gonna talk through the different states which have enacted these EPR laws. How are they different? What do you need to know? Um, what are covered materials? Um, so these are the classifications of materials of packaging. What you need to know about that? Um, we're also gonna dive into ecomodulation fees. These are incentives that are built into fee structures so that if you design more sustainable packaging, you pay a lower cost than if you design and release packaging, um, that is not as sustainable. And so, again, there's some great incentives installed and built into these programs that are there to drive behavior. And if you take advantage of it, you can really make a competitive advantage for your company. We're also gonna be talking about key reporting deadlines and compliance requirements and how you can prepare your company now to avoid last minute penalties. Alright. In part two, we're gonna do a deep dive into Oregon's EPR program. EPR is a really our Oregon's EPR program is a really exciting program, um, because there's all kinds of incentives built into that program that allow you to totally reduce your fee structure if you do some simple things, um, related to sustainability and life cycle analysis. So, um, we're gonna break down Oregon's fee structure and some early strategies that you can do to save money. Um, we're gonna talk about the bonus systems for life cycle assessments that are built into the Oregon law and then things that you can do now to take advantage of it. And it's important that you listen because there are some first year compliance strategies and some things that you can do this year that will get you big discounts on the program next year. We're also gonna do some work to show you steps that you can reduce your fees before the program actually starts on 07/01/2025. So there's material switches that you can do that would result in cost savings and, again, how you can maximize these ecomodulation incentives. Okay. In part three, we're gonna do a deep dive into Colorado's program. So what makes Colorado's EPR program different than Oregon? How can you prepare? How do you deal with having to harmonize or deal with multiple state programs? We will go into all of that as well as who is covered and who is exempt under Colorado law law. We'll talk about special ecomodulation incentives, um, for recyclable materials that are built into the Colorado Colorado law that are different than Oregon, for example, and then what material switches you can make that could result in cost savings and, again, how to maximize your incentives. And then in part four, this is the really exciting innovative part. We're gonna do EPR strategy and advanced packaging redesign. You can think about this as how to hack EPR regulations to gain a competitive advantage. EPR was created to drive behavior change. The states want to incentivize smart producers to do things differently with their packaging to reduce their total cost. And so packaging redesign strategies, um, can be employed that will really give you a complete and different structure of cost than your competitors. So we'll dive into how lightweighting and material efficiency can be used, moving to highly recyclable materials, the opportunity for reuse. We'll also be looking at how to eliminate hard to recycle plastics and composite materials that, um, have really high rates. And so really diving into how you can use EPR to differentiate your brand and win with sustainabilities. And, of course, we'll be bringing you case studies of how companies are leveraging EPR compliance as a competitive advantage. Now, um, there will be some future episodes that we haven't launched yet that will be more state specific deep dives. As soon as we get more insight into California's s b 54 law, they haven't published their program, um, and their fee structure yet, but they are expecting to do that, um, sometime in 2026. And when they do, we will come out with another episode that is a deep dive into the California law. We'll also be doing this for Maine and Minnesota and other states as they as they, uh, come on to the program. Now, um, some final thoughts here. EPR is here to stay. The very best companies aren't just complying. They're using this as a strategic advantage. There is gonna be finally a compelling reason to make change because you're gonna be able to radically reduce your total fees and costs if you make some changes to your packaging. So if you understand the regulations, you optimize your packaging, and you plan ahead, you can turn compliance to these new EPR laws into true cost savings and market differentiation. So thank you for listening to this overview of our master class on EPR from Veritas Sustainable Design Lab. We hope you enjoy the class, and let's get started.