The August 12, 2026 application date for the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2025/40) (PPWR) forced a change no single team can deliver alone. Recyclability grades, recycled-content thresholds, reuse targets and empty-space limits each touch a different part of the value chain simultaneously: making collaboration a compliance requirement, not a soft skill.
This third post in our four-part series explains why PPWR breaks siloed ways of working and how a connected, systems-based approach closes the gap. Posts one and two framed packaging as an engineering decision and took that decision down to the molecular level. Here, we connect the people, functions and partners who have to make it work together.
Here’s what you’ll take away in this post:
- Why PPWR’s targets span every function and can’t be solved by any one team
- How recyclability, protection and shelf-life trade-offs only become visible at system level
- How a micro-to-macro virtual twin replaces siloed handoffs with connected, parallel work
- Why traceability from requirement to test is the backbone of compliance
A Systemic Approach: The Systems-of-Systems Vision
PPWR can’t be solved by any single company. Real progress requires coordination across the whole value chain: manufacturers, packaging providers, retailers, end users and recyclers working together through open, interoperable approaches.
PPWR’s targets are structural, each one crosses organizational boundaries by design:
- Recyclability is a material science problem: design-for-recycling criteria are due January 1, 2028, with only grades A and B permitted by 2038.
- Recycled content is a sourcing and process problem: thresholds rise from 10–35% by 2030 to 25–65% by 2040.
- Reuse and refill reshape logistics: 40% of transport packaging must be reusable by 2030, rising toward 70% by 2040.
- Empty-space limits touch design and distribution: grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging can’t exceed 50% empty space by 2030.
No department owns all of that. When targets stretch across functions, siloed teams produce partial answers that fail at the seams and developing new materials only reinforces the point, since breakthroughs in this space rarely happen inside one company’s walls.
Sarah Klinger, Industry Growth Leader CPG-Retail, EuroNorth, names the shift directly:
“PPWR is shifting sustainability from a voluntary, unmet goal to a strict regulatory mandate, forcing businesses to abandon linear, siloed processes. To comply with targets like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), recycling, and Digital Product Passports (DPPs), industries must collaborate.”
That collaboration is targeted, not generic. Chemical suppliers share molecular-level resin data with CPG brands, high-tech providers contribute embedded intelligence and traceable sorting, equipment builders co-innovate packaging lines and recycling facilities inform early-stage eco-design. Each partner holds data that others need.
From Reactive to Proactive
The strategic prize is turning constraint into synergy. Renaud Le Chatelier, VTE Industry Solution Experience Expert – VTaaS Portfolio, frames the mindset that separates leaders from laggards:
“The future of product and packaging design now hinges on environmental optimization, a demand driven not only by regulation but also by consumers in a context of tight budgets. A strategic, operational, and proactive approach is essential to identify synergies rather than reacting to external constraints in a fragmented and short-term manner.”
Companies that build alliances early tend to win. As more companies pursue circularity, partnerships are expanding into multi-stakeholder coalitions and circular ecosystems the direction the whole industry is now moving toward. Forward-looking organizations create relationships across the full waste value chain, and under tightening regulation, that early coordination is a genuine strategic advantage.
The Cost of Deciding in the Wrong Order
The clearest picture of siloed failure comes from Clara Wiltberger, Sustainability and New Energy Business Consultant – Industrial Equipment:
“Today: We choose the material, then discover that the machine isn’t compatible with it, and then find out that the regulatory documentation doesn’t match. The systems-based approach, powered by the virtual twin, reverses this process: we model all 3 together before investing in the production line.”
Think of collaboration failure as a sequence of disconnected steps. Material, machine and regulatory documentation get decided one after another, and each later discovery forces expensive rework. Modeling all three together, with the right functions involved from the start, reverses that order. It’s the difference between finding a problem on a screen and finding it on a production line after capital is committed.
A Micro-to-Macro scale Virtual Twin Approach
Dassault Systèmes replaces static models with a collaborative Virtual Twin, powered by scientifically grounded Industrial AI and hosted on the OUTSCALE sovereign cloud, so cross-functional teams can make decisions together, not in sequence.
The core idea is that packaging redesign is no longer a material substitution exercise. Walid Darghouth, CPG-Retail Industry Business Development Director, describes the connected approach:
“Packaging redesign is no longer a material substitution exercise. Our micro-to-macro Virtual Twin connects material science, product–packaging interaction, packaging engineering and manufacturing, enabling organizations to accelerate sustainable packaging innovation while reducing technical risk, physical testing and time-to-market.”
That micro-to-macro thread connects decisions across functions, from material characterization and substitution through product-packaging interaction, performance prediction, manufacturing simulation, scale-up validation, sustainability assessment and virtual validation before physical testing.
The business case is measurable: this approach cuts physical prototypes by 30–60% and accelerates packaging development by 20–30%, while improving manufacturability, reducing redesign cycles and speeding PPWR compliance.
Treating the Pack and Product as One System
The deeper shift is architectural: treating the pack and product as a single system model rather than separate documents owned by separate teams. Guillaume Belloncle, CATIA MBSE Strategic Engagements Industry Process Director, explains how that works in practice.
A system model maps how the product, packaging, filling line and logistics loop interact across the full lifecycle. That view matters under PPWR because recyclability and reuse are decided at the design stage but pay off at disposal making downstream consequences visible while there’s still time to act.
Traceability connects each regulatory obligation across the full lifecycle (design, usage, and end of life) to the simulation or test that verifies compliance. Material choices, recyclability grades and end-of-life pathways stay linked to the requirements that govern them, so circular design decisions don’t get lost in development. The declaration of conformity is built from evidence that already exists turning a last-minute scramble into a routine output.
Key Takeaways for the Value Chain
PPWR makes collaboration a condition of compliance, and the August 12, 2026 date has made that coordination compulsory.
- The targets span functions. Recyclability, recycled content, reuse and empty-space limits each affect multiple teams, so siloed work produces partial answers.
- Synergy beats reaction. A strategic, proactive approach that builds alliances early turns tightening regulation into competitive advantage.
- The virtual twin is the shared workspace. Modeling material, machine, supply chain and regulation together let functions work in parallel and catch problems before capital gets spent.
- Traceability is the backbone. Linking each requirement to its design and test builds the declaration of conformity from evidence that already exists.
One connected value chain beats a sequence of handoffs. Discover our Multi-scale Collaboration Solutions and start mapping PPWR requirements to the partners and functions that need to decide together.
Coming Next: Redefining What Performance Means
Once the whole value chain works from one connected view, a harder question surfaces: what are they optimizing for?
Different actors need to work better together to explore more what-if scenarios and make better decisions. The trade-offs are real and complex: lighter packs protect the product less, mono-material is easier to recycle but may shorten shelf life, and a recyclable pack that causes food waste is a net loss. These trade-offs only become visible when teams look at the whole system rather than the pack alone.
That’s the real work ahead. In post four, we examine how virtual twins let teams evaluate system performance and balance circularity, carbon footprint and recyclability against traditional metrics like durability and cost.
This blog article is the third in a four-part series exploring the implications of PPWR and its impact on the future of plastics packaging. Continue the series with the articles below:
Part 1: Beyond Compliance: How New Rules Are Reshaping Plastics Packaging
Part 2: Material Science: Driving Innovation for PPWR Compliance
Part 4: Expanding the Definition of Performance: How PPWR Rewrites the Packaging Scorecard
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This article was developed in collaboration with experts from across the company, whose insights and expertise contributed to its content and perspectives: Sarah Linger, Industry Growth Leader, CPG-Retail, EuroNorth; Renaud Le Chatelier, VTE Industry Solution Experience Expert, VTaaS Portfolio; Carlijn Goedhart, WW DELMIA Sustainability Industry Process Expert Specialist; Guillaume Belloncle, CATIA MBSE Strategic Engagements Industry Process Director; Stephen Todd, Senior Solution Strategy Specialist, BIOVIA Strategy & Contract Research; Walid Dargouth, CPG-Retail Industry Business Development Director; Mel Creasey, SIMULIA Industry Business Senior Consultant; Dave McLean, CPG-Retail Industry Business Development Director; and Clara Wiltberger, Sustainability & New Energy Business Consultant – IE.