China’s Green Packaging R&D Funding: Up to RMB 5 Million for Eligible Firms

With the release of the Measures for the Administration of High-Tech R&D Funds for the Packaging Industry on August 27, 2008, China’s Ministry of Finance signaled stronger backing for the environmental protection sector. The rules are designed to standardize how high-tech R&D funds for packaging are managed while encouraging companies to develop new products and adopt new technologies, thereby supporting the circular economy and the growth of green, eco-friendly packaging. From the effective date, eligible enterprises may apply for R&D funding of up to RMB 5 million. Priority areas include projects at an advanced or comparable technical level; new eco-friendly packaging materials that protect human health and safety and meet environmental requirements; packaging reduction and energy-saving initiatives; and packaging waste treatment and utilization. Such projects must align with national macro policies, environmental protection, and circular economy goals. Funding is mainly provided through non-repayable grants and loan interest subsidies.

Pathways to Promote Green Packaging: Building a Green Packaging Evaluation System

At present, life cycle assessment (LCA) still faces practical obstacles in China. Its calculations are complex and labor-intensive, and implementation is difficult: the core inventory data collection step is challenging, while impact assessment requires determining equivalence coefficients and weights and converting between different units. As a result, the conditions for fully applying LCA are not yet in place, and widespread adoption is not feasible without a fairly long preparation period. To move green packaging forward in a timely way, a two-step approach can be used: first classify green, eco-friendly packaging into grades, then apply different review standards for each grade.

AA-grade green packaging refers to moderate packaging whose waste can be recycled, reused, regenerated, or degraded; whose toxic substance content stays within prescribed limits; and which causes no public harm to people or the environment across its full life cycle. For AA-grade certification, LCA can be used to set standards, or its inventory analysis and impact assessment data can serve directly as evaluation criteria, with corresponding ISO140001 Type I and Type III environmental labels awarded. A-grade green packaging denotes moderate packaging whose waste can be recycled, reused, regenerated, or degraded, and whose toxic substance content remains within specified limits.

For A-grade green packaging, five practical indicators can be created from its definition: whether packaging is reduced at source; whether toxic or harmful components in packaging materials exceed limits; whether the packaging carries the manufacturer’s “self environmental declaration”; whether it can be reused or recovered for regeneration; and whether it can degrade on its own. Products meeting these indicators may receive a single-factor environmental label.

Creating a Chinese green packaging evaluation system requires covering the entire packaging life cycle—manufacturing, use, recovery, and disposal—and touches on foreign trade law, inspection and quarantine rules, and other packaging regulations. From a sustainable development perspective, China should build an effective green packaging framework that involves national legislation, departmental oversight, industry coordination, enterprise implementation, research institute support, and broad public participation.

Improving Laws and Regulations to Create an Operating Mechanism for Green Packaging

Material selection and packaging volume, waste gas and wastewater discharge during manufacturing, and the recovery, reuse, and regeneration of packaging waste all depend on laws, regulations, and administrative and economic measures for implementation.

First, strengthen the development of laws and regulations.

Major national laws—including the Environmental Protection Law, the Cleaner Production Promotion Law, the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste, the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, and the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law—provide a strong legal foundation for environmental protection. However, supporting rules tailored to the packaging industry’s realities still need further improvement.

Second, tax instruments can help balance corporate and public interests. Most Chinese packaging manufacturers and importers focus on their own interests and seldom consider the natural environment or public interest proactively; in production, they tend to use virgin materials rather than recycled ones. To strengthen resource-conserving awareness and advance packaging waste recovery, an environmental pollution tax could be levied on packaging producers and on manufacturers and importers that use packaging, based on the gap between the amount produced or imported and the amount of packaging recovered. The larger the gap, the higher the tax rate. Similar practices have long existed overseas.

Third, clear recovery targets for packaging waste should be set, a society-wide recovery mechanism should be established, and more funding should be directed to R&D for green, eco-friendly packaging.

Fourth, extensive publicity and education should be carried out to foster a supportive social environment for green packaging. Stakeholders in technology, law, management, and education should work together to implement circular economy and resource-conservation policies and advance the green packaging sector.

Source: China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362246.html