About SPI: Packaging Market Intelligence and Advisory from Sourced Data

Who SPI is

Strategic Packaging Insights (SPI) describes itself as specialised packaging market intelligence and strategic advisory. The name is literal. SPI works only on packaging: the materials, the formats they become, the companies that buy them, and the rules and fees that now shape all three. When a question falls outside packaging, the SPI team says so rather than stretching to answer it.

SPI is a trading name of SRI Consulting Group Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16581261. The registered office is Suite 10 Capital House, 61 Amhurst Road, London E8 1LL, and enquiries go to sales@strategicpackaginginsights.com. Every page on this site is written by the SPI team and credited to the team, not to an individual author.

Packaging market intelligence, as SPI uses the term, means sourced and dated information on the rules, buyers and costs that drive packaging decisions, organised so it can be compared across markets. It is decision support. It is not legal advice, and SPI is not a laboratory, a certifier or an auditor.

What SPI does

SPI does two things, and they share one evidence base.

The SPI Trackers are the public part. The SPI Regulation Tracker lists packaging rules made by public authorities: extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes, plastic taxes, bans, deposit return, recycled content, reuse, labelling, design and reporting rules. The SPI Buyers Database records what large brand owners and retailers have publicly promised on recyclability, recycled content, virgin plastic and reuse, and what they report since. The SPI EPR & Plastic Tax Calculator turns tonnes of packaging by material into fees and taxes at the rates that schemes and governments publish. All three sit on the SPI Trackers hub.

SPI Consulting is the paid part. It takes the same rows and applies them to one organisation’s materials, markets and decisions. A tracker can say that Washington bars producers outside a producer responsibility organisation in good standing from 1 March 2029 (PR-US-008); a consulting assignment says which of your products that affects and what it will cost.

Why SPI focuses on packaging now

Between 2026 and 2030 the packaging rulebook changes in most large markets at once, and the changes reach the pack itself, not only the paperwork.

• Regulation (EU) 2025/40, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), has generally applied since 12 August 2026, and its recyclability, recycled-content, reuse, empty-space and format obligations start on 1 January 2030 (PR-EU-001, PR-EU-004, PR-EU-006, PR-EU-008, PR-EU-009, PR-EU-010; European Parliament Legislative Observatory and EUR-Lex, as given in the tracker, checked 13 October 2026).
• California SB 343 restricts recyclability claims on products made after 4 October 2026, but a federal court has enjoined enforcement since 14 July 2026 (PR-US-011; CalRecycle, as given in the tracker, checked 13 October 2026).
• Deposit return for drinks containers starts in England and Northern Ireland on 1 October 2027 under SI 2025/67 (PR-GB-004; legislation.gov.uk, as given in the tracker, checked 13 October 2026).
• The UK’s PackUK Year 2 (2026-27) household packaging fees are still illustrative: GBP 415, 455 or 545 per tonne of plastic depending on the recyclability rating (PR-GB-003; GOV.UK, as given in the tracker, checked 13 October 2026).

At the same time, many brand owners’ first-generation packaging pledges fell due in 2025. Of the targets in the SPI Buyers Database with a deadline of 2025 or earlier, 16 are reported met and 19 missed, while 24 have no reported result yet (SPI Buyers Database, 13 October 2026).

Rules move costs, and buyer targets move demand. SPI exists to put both on one footing, with the source attached.

Where the tracked rules are

The row count shows where packaging law is most fragmented, not where markets are largest. The United States has many rows because each state writes its own EPR law; the EU has many because the PPWR is tracked obligation by obligation, since its duties start on different dates.

Who SPI works for

SPI writes for five audiences, each with its own SPI Intelligence page filtered to the rules and buyers that matter to that reader.

SPI also groups rules and buyer targets by end use on its industry pages: food and beverage, personal and home care, pharma and healthcare, and retail and e-commerce.

How SPI works

The SPI Methodology page sets out the full method. In short, every dataset follows the same four steps.

Two working rules sit behind the table. First, where SPI has no reliable source, it says there is a gap instead of filling it: the calculator, for example, does not include Germany or Ontario, because neither publishes a public fee table. Second, statuses come from the record, not from expectation. A rule is “proposed” until it is law, and a brand target is “met” only when the company has reported a result that meets it.

SPI's commitments

These are the commitments SPI makes on every page and in every assignment.

• Sourced. Each row names its original source and the date it was consulted.
• Separated. Sourced facts, SPI estimates and SPI interpretation are labelled and kept apart.
• Labelled. Any sponsored briefing or supplier profile is marked as sponsored. Findings are never for sale.
• Confidential. What an organisation shares with SPI is used for that assignment only.
• Corrected in the open. SPI does not delete a row’s history to hide a mistake, and does not change a sourced fact at the request of the company or body it describes unless the source supports the change.

What SPI is, and what it is not

Where a project needs one of the things SPI does not do, such as counsel’s opinion, a laboratory test or a certified recyclability assessment, SPI says so in its proposal, so the organisation can bring in the right specialist.

SPI Consulting

SPI Consulting is delivered by the SPI team on the same sourced data as the trackers. Each service page states its scope, deliverables, method and limits. Prices are available on request after a scoping call.

Consulting work follows six steps: scope, source plan, evidence, analysis, a check by a second SPI team member, and delivery. Every external fact keeps its source, every assumption is listed, and forecasts are given as scenarios with their drivers and ranges.

The SPI model: Discover, Understand, Evaluate, Decide, Implement

SPI’s products follow the order in which packaging decisions are made, and a reader can stop at any stage.

A typical path: a converter filters the SPI Buyers Database to beverage companies with recycled-content targets, checks the PPWR 30% minimum for single-use plastic beverage bottles from 2030 in the tracker (PR-EU-004), prices its customers’ Oregon and Colorado volumes in the calculator, and then asks SPI for a market assessment of food-grade recycled PET demand.

Using and citing SPI data

The SPI Trackers are free to read, filter and download, and individual rows can be quoted in reports and publications if they are cited as “Strategic Packaging Insights, name of the tracker, date accessed”. A written licence is needed to republish a tracker in bulk, to resell or redistribute the data, to load it into a product offered to others, or to access it automatically at scale; see Data Licensing. The source texts that rows quote remain the property of their publishers.

Contact SPI

To ask about a tracker, report an error, discuss a licence or scope a project, use the enquiry form or write to sales@strategicpackaginginsights.com. The SPI team reads every enquiry and answers by e-mail. The SPI team page lists the roles and areas of focus of the people behind the trackers and consulting work.