Industrial packaging and its impact on sustainability and circular economy: A systematic literature review

Industrial packaging can enable efficient and sustainable logistics activities throughout supply chains. Such activities have a great impact on a company's sustainability performance. There has been an increase in research on industrial packaging and its potential to contribute to sustainable supply chains and a circular economy, but the current research is fragmented. The purpose of this study is fourfold: to gather, frame and analyse the research in industrial packaging; to clarify knowledge on the topic; to explore industrial packaging's relationships to sustainability and circular economy; and to propose directions for future research. A systematic literature review was carried out on a sample of 98 journal articles. The content analyses identified four categories which define the focus of industrial packaging research: (i) improve supply chain efficiency encompassing industrial packaging, (ii) minimise environmental impact of industrial packaging, (iii) enhance industrial packaging development process, and (iv) implications of industrial packaging regulatory compliance. The analyses illustrate the current research tendency to explore the environmental aspects of packaging in contrast to the initial tendency which focused on economic aspects. A particular area of interest in the current research is that of “reusing” packaging to increase circularity, but other approaches with high potential (e.g. reducing packaging) are neglected, indicating future research directions. This study contributes to academic and industrial communities by structuring the research streams, clarifying the state of the art, and calling out for the complexity and importance of strategically driven decisions in industrial packaging and their implications.