Sustainability has been a mainly buzzy topic, particularly for packaging, for the last eight years. But the exercise is going through a period of changeover, according to Scott Byrne, vice president of worldwide sustainability at Sonoco. Sustainability is shifting from its first generation where corporates made voluntary entitlements to the next generation where acquiescence will be compulsory, he expressed. This is influenced by legislation like prolonged producer responsibility for packaging laws that are emerging in the United States, Byrne said.
“Instead of saying, ‘Does this help us fulfil our voluntary goals or our promises to certain volunteer organizations?’ it’s now, ‘Does this fit with California’s SB 54? What does this mean for California’s SB 343?” he expressed. “I think it just took some time for those questions to evolve and for people to find their footing.”
Sonoco sustainability aims comprise decreasing absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25% by 2030 from a 2020 baseline, representing an 11% decline as of 2024. It also focuses to decrease absolute scope 3 emissions by 13.5% by 2030, versus a 2019 baseline, toward which it represented a 32% decline as of 2024. These goals were accepted by the Science Based Targets initiative in 2021, and Sonoco intends to recertify its SBTi targets this year.
Before joining Sonoco, Byrne functioned on sustainability programs at Tetra Pak, and he had helped as director of government affairs at the Carton Council of North America. He’s also on the board of directors for the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment (Ameripen) and formerly helped for the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment (Ameripen) and formerly served as the organization’s president.
Packaging Dive sat down with Byrne at The Packaging Conference in Austin, Texas, to discuss the role of policy in packaging sustainability in 2026 and beyond, as well as Sonoco’s sustainability initiatives as the company closes out a multiyear period of shift.
Sonoco has three big industries and two big geographies. Now it provides us with an opportunity to express, are there places where we might want to have a region-specific focus, or a material-specific goal? Before, the difficulty was such that it was just impossible to kind of break it down into those smaller component parts.
12 March 2026
12 March 2026
12 March 2026
12 March 2026
