MINISTERS have extended the National Packaging Covenant until April 2005. Originally signed by environment and conservation ministers, local governments and companies involved in packaging in Australia and New Zealand on 27th August 1999, the Covenant was due to expire in August this year.
Packaging Council chief executive officer, Gavin Williams told Manufacturers’ Monthly the interim extension will provide the packaging industry more time to institute an outcome-focused system driven by KPIs for release in a new Covenant.
The Covenant currently requires signatories to have action plans for managing packaging. But critics have claimed these plans have not been specific or rigorous enough.
Williams says the next Covenant will more prescriptively define the areas signatories must report on. “There should be a set of key performance indicators which all signatories, governments as well, must address,” he said.
Performance measures would target areas such as litter reduction, recycled content, transport optimisation, and product redesign.
Aside from tightening guidelines, the Packaging Council hopes to keep the Covenant’s existing structure intact for future versions.
Williams says the Covenant is a co-regulatory model. “The Covenant is essentially two parts, there is the Covenant which is the voluntary agreement. Underpinning the Covenant but part of the Covenant process is what they call the regulatory safety net, or NEPM (National Environmental Protection Measure).”
NEPM requires non-signatories to the Covenant to take packaging back after use. Williams sees co-regulation as the key to the Covenant model’s success. “Industry insisted on that regulatory safety net and we want governments to use it…we are saying to governments, use the regulation sensibly, wisely, judiciously and so on, but it’s there to be used,” he said.
Williams claims the Covenant affords greater flexibility and better environmental outcomes than other models that would likely be introduced in its place.
“If we don’t get an extension of the Covenant past April 2005, companies should not assume there will be a policy vacuum. There will be a policy on packaging, and if it’s not the Covenant, it will be in almost every respect, I think, substantially disadvantageous to industry,” Williams said.