The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) is the organisation accountable to the Federal and state and territory governments for delivering Australia’s National Packaging Targets. APCO operates as part of a co-regulatory framework for packaging established under Australian Federal and state and territory law. Its activities include the annual collection of data from liable brand owners and manufacturers who place packaging on the Australian market. This is used to assess compliance with the Covenant and progress towards the National Packaging Targets.

A review of progress towards the targets, undertaken in 2022-23, reported slow progress towards the targets and found that improved data collection, integrity and insights by APCO, up to and beyond 2025, will be critical to accelerating the work needed to deliver on the targets.

APCO also administers the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) program, which provides on-pack labelling advice for consumers at point of disposal, letting them know whether packaging elements are recyclable via local materials recovery facilities. The ARL program is available in Australia and New Zealand and is a voluntary program that brand owners may choose to use as part of their benefits of reporting and membership. The program currently supports labelling for over 300,000 products in Australia and is seeking further growth in participation. Collection and use of packaging data is collected is critical to inform the operation and integrity of the program.

As part of its work to accelerate progress towards the National Packaging Targets and to meet evolving needs of members and their increasing corporate commitments, APCO plans to augment the services and functions of its existing sustainable packaging evaluation tool (SPET). Given that many of APCO’s members are global corporations, APCO is also seeking to further improve the alignment with emergent international best practice and be able to take account of international developments, including the nascent UN plastics treaty and relevant ISO standards.