When you keep note of the overall progress in the industry – perhaps by some competitors – it’s reinvigorating to your own fire. Acceleration: Hitting Your Stride For me, if 2023 and 2024 were about building foundations and 2025 was about growing them, then 2026 is shaping up to be the year when momentum compounds. Data prepared by PPAI and others will start telling richer stories as industry-wide, category- and product-level carbon footprints move from hidden spreadsheets into realtime design and purchasing decisions. Partnerships will evolve beyond paperwork as distributors and suppliers coinvest in traceability, shared material platforms and digital product passports. Circularity will emerge as a true selling point, shifting conversations from “Is it recycled?” to “What happens next?” – from resale and refill to repair and reuse. Verification will move into the mainstream, with certifications like FSC, GOTS and bluesign becoming not just badges but differentiators in RFPs and client storytelling. And sustainability will increasingly become a sales tool as teams learn to translate ESG data into client value, transforming sustainability from cost center to growth driver. Setting Goals, Not Finish Lines On an industrywide level, what’s in front of us is staggering. Imagine opening the 2030 impact reports and seeing product-level impact data from every PPAI 100 supplier, an industrywide benchmark for responsible sourcing, and clients expecting ESG data as part of every quote. Distributors may differentiate not on catalog breadth but on circularity, repairability and material innovation. Most transformative of all, industrywide emissions could decline measurably – not because one company raced ahead, but because collaboration replaced competition. That macro progress is happening because people just like you, in individual companies, are taking serious looks at the micro. Operating procedures and standards are improving business by business. None of this happens overnight. But it’s absolutely within reach, because the groundwork is already being laid by the companies whose reports we’re reading today. If sustainability progress feels slow, that’s because real change takes root quietly. It’s less “tada!” and more time-lapse. As we turn the page into 2026, don’t measure your success by how flashy your one-year wins look. Measure it by how durable your systems will be five years from now because by then, you won’t just be catching up – you’ll be leading. And who knows? You might even become fun at parties again. Especially if the party has only reusable cups. Wimbush is the director of sustainability and responsibility at PPAI. That macro progress is happening because people just like you, in individual companies, are taking serious looks at the micro. PPAI • JANUARY 2026 • 31 Responsibility | Voices
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