India's four big FMCG brand owners all say they meet plastic EPR, but each proves it in a different unit

The rulebook: four categories, three target types

Schedule II applies to producers, importers and brand owners of plastic packaging, each with its own target clause: 7.2 for producers, 7.3 for importers and 7.4 for brand owners⁴. All four companies here file as brand owners; Nestlé India’s BRSR states it outright¹¹. Plastic waste processors register too, but only to generate the certificates the others use.

The categories decide everything that follows, because targets, recycling floors and certificates all run category by category (Exhibit 2). Clause 8.2 lets a surplus be used only within the same category, so a company that over-collects flexible film cannot cover a shortfall in rigid bottles⁴.

Three kinds of target sit on top of the categories. The first is the EPR target itself, a collection duty set as a share of an “eligible quantity”. For a brand owner, clause 7.4(a) defines that quantity as the average weight of virgin plastic packaging bought and placed on the market over the last two financial years, plus average pre-consumer waste⁴. The target was 25% of it in 2021-22, 70% in 2022-23 and 100% from 2023-24 (Exhibit 3).

The second is the minimum recycling level. Clause 7.4(c) requires a rising share of each category’s EPR target to be met by recycling rather than by end-of-life disposal such as co-processing in cement kilns or waste-to-energy. Clause 7.2(c) adds that only plastics that cannot be recycled may be sent for end-of-life disposal⁴. The Hindi text of G.S.R. 201(E) of 14 March 2024 carries the same levels for Categories I to III, as SPI reads it³.

The third is recycled content. G.S.R. 237(E) of 31 March 2026 restated the category shares in clauses 7.2(d), 7.3(d) and 7.4(e), with a different base for each role: packaging manufactured for producers, imported for importers and used for brand owners¹. The SPI tracker records that the same percentages already appeared in the 2022 Schedule, so the 2026 change is in exemptions, importer certificates and carry-forward rather than in the numbers (PR-IN-002).

Reuse adds a fourth duty for brand owners of rigid packs from 0.9 litres or kilograms, covered in SPI’s guide to the 2026 rules and in PR-IN-003. This piece does not repeat it, because none of the four companies reports a reuse share.

Four notifications since 2022 changed how the duty works

The Rules are amended by Gazette notification, not by Parliament. G.S.R. 237(E) lists every amendment to the 2016 Rules in its closing note, from G.S.R. 320(E) of 18 March 2016 to G.S.R. 73(E) of 23 January 2025¹. Four of them carry the EPR changes that matter to an FMCG brand owner (Exhibit 5).

2024 (G.S.R. 201(E), 14 March 2024, F. No. 17/6/2023-HSM). The amendment rewrote the definitions of importer, manufacturer, producer and seller, barred manufacturers from selling plastic raw material to an unregistered producer or seller, and set a 30-day deemed approval for registration applications³. It brought compostable and biodegradable plastics into EPR, with certificates for biodegradable plastics to be issued by local authorities. The recycled-content label must follow IS 14534:2023. For brand owners, the clause with most money attached is new paragraph 8.9: in SPI’s reading of the Hindi text, CPCB fixes the highest and lowest prices for EPR certificates at 100% and 30% of the environmental compensation leviable for missed obligations, and paragraph 8.10 confines portal trades to that band. SPI has not yet confirmed the English wording.

2025 (G.S.R. 73(E), 23 January 2025). A short notification inserted rule 11(1A): from 1 July 2025, the packaging information that rule 11(1) requires may be given by a barcode or QR code on the pack, in a product brochure, or through a unique number issued under another law². Producers, importers and brand owners must tell CPCB which route they use, and CPCB publishes and updates the list every quarter. A new rule 19 makes any contravention liable to penalty under section 15 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which the Jan Vishwas Act of 2023 set at INR 10,000 to INR 15 lakh, plus INR 10,000 a day while it continues (PR-IN-001).

2026 (G.S.R. 237(E), 31 March 2026, F. No. 17/4/2025-HSM). The draft, G.S.R. 365(E), was published on 3 June 2025. The final text restated the recycled-content table, exempted packaging where a law or mandatory standard bars recycled plastic, stopped importers counting recycled plastic already in imported material, and allowed unmet 2025-26 recycled-content targets for food-contact packaging to be carried forward for three years at one third or more a year¹. It also defined end-of-life disposal to cover co-processing in cement and steel plants, waste-to-energy, waste-to-oil and road construction, and let a Registered Environment Auditor run the paragraph 12.4 and 13.1 checks. It did not change the collection targets or the minimum recycling levels.

Compensation and certificates: what a shortfall costs

Clause 9 of Schedule II imposes environmental compensation on any unmet target, under the polluter pays principle, with CPCB to lay down the guidelines (clause 9.2). CPCB levies it on entities in more than two states and State Boards on the rest (PR-IN-001). The rupee rate is not in the Schedule, and SPI has not yet confirmed CPCB’s current rate table, so this piece expresses every cost as a multiple of that rate.

Compensation does not settle the duty. Clause 9.5 keeps the unmet quantity alive for three years and refunds 75% of the compensation if the gap is closed within one year, 60% within two and 40% within three; after that the amount is forfeited⁴. The 2024 price band then ties the certificate market to the same rate (Exhibit 6).

The certificates themselves come from processors. Clause 11.5 says only processors registered under the Rules may provide certificates for plastic waste processing, except for plastic used in road construction⁴. Surplus certificates can be sold, carried forward or set against a past shortfall, but only within the category that earned them (clauses 8.1 to 8.3). The market is large: the SPI tracker records, from CPCB’s 6 July 2026 affidavit to the National Green Tribunal, 3,079 registered processors and 237.95 lakh tonnes of certificates generated since the portal opened, of which 178.48 lakh tonnes had been transferred to obligated companies (SPI Regulation Tracker, India).

HUL’s BRSR describes this market from the buyer’s side. It says it registered on the CPCB portal for EPR credit exchange from financial year 2023-24 and aligns its credit purchase plan with CPCB guidelines⁵. The other three describe collection and management rather than purchase, though all three buy through the same portal.

What each company reports about fulfilment

The four filings answer the same BRSR question, the Principle 2 table on products reclaimed at end of life, in different ways (Exhibit 7). Each row below is in that company’s own definition. SPI ratios stay inside one company.

A ratio under 100% is not a breach. The EPR target is a share of the eligible quantity, a two-year average of past placements, not of the current year’s sales (clause 7.4(a)). A brand owner whose volumes grow can therefore meet 100% of its legal target while handling less than this year’s tonnage. ITC’s plastic packaging rose 4.2% from 70,788 tonnes to 73,762 tonnes in FY 2025-26⁸, so a ratio of 98.3% is consistent with full compliance; its FY 2024-25 ratio was 91.1% on the same arithmetic.

A ratio over 100% is not a surplus either. HUL’s BRSR says its 261,214 tonnes of credits cover “more than 100% of our total plastic packaging footprint”⁵, and its Plastics page says it has collected more than it uses since 2021⁶. Clause 7.4(a) counts virgin plastic only, so the legal base is smaller still than the footprint. Whether the excess is held as carried-forward surplus, offset against past years or never registered as surplus is not stated.

Recycled or disposed: the split the floor tests

The minimum recycling level is the part of the duty most exposed to the end-of-life route. A company can hit 100% of its EPR target with end-of-life certificates from cement kilns and still miss the recycling floor. Exhibit 8 shows how much each company says was recycled.

SPI analysis: the shares cannot be set against Exhibit 3 directly, because the floors apply category by category and none of the four publishes its category mix. ITC’s 43.0% would clear the 40% floor for Categories II and III in 2025-26 but not the 60% floor for Category I. If most of ITC’s plastic is flexible and multilayer, as its biscuit, snack and atta range suggests, the company-level share may be adequate this year and short in 2027-28, when the Category II and III floor reaches 60%.

Recycled content: four bases, one statutory test

The statutory recycled-content duty is measured by category against plastic packaging used. The companies publish four different shares (Exhibit 9).

Food contact explains part of the spread. The 2026 exemption covers packaging where FSSAI, CDSCO or a mandatory standard bars recycled plastic, and the carry-forward for 2025-26 shortfalls applies to food-contact packaging (Source 1, PR-IN-002). Marico’s 32.2% in non-edible products against 14.9% overall, and ITC’s rigid 35.5% against 4.5% flexible, both point to a non-food rigid share well ahead of the rest. The SPI pledge gap analysis sets such goals against legal minimums in other markets.

Exemptions and carry-forward: where the 2026 text helps

G.S.R. 237(E) changed who must meet the recycled-content shares in full. Packaging is exempt where a central law or rule, FSSAI, CDSCO, the Central Insecticide Board or a mandatory Indian Standard does not permit recycled plastic, provided the annual return names the provision relied on¹. Unmet 2025-26 food-contact targets can be carried for three years from 2026-27, with at least one third cleared each year on top of that year’s own share. For multilayer packs, Note 3 limits the recycled-content target to the weight of the plastic layers.

The four portfolios use those reliefs differently. The SPI Buyers Database profiles place most of Nestlé India’s range in food, from noodle and coffee films to confectionery laminates, and most of ITC’s plastic in biscuit, snack and atta films¹⁵. HUL’s profile in the same database lists home and personal care brands such as Vim, Surf excel, Dove and Sunsilk among those using recycled plastic, alongside one food pack, the Kissan Squash bottle¹⁵. Marico splits between Parachute and hair oils in non-food packs and Saffola in edible oil and food.

SPI analysis: the exemption turns the statutory test from a portfolio percentage into a share of non-exempt tonnage, category by category. A food-heavy company may therefore owe far less recycled plastic than its low portfolio share implies, while a non-food rigid portfolio owes the full 40% in 2026-27. The published shares in Exhibit 9 cannot show which applies, because none of the four reports its exempt tonnage or the provisions it relies on. Marico’s 32.2% in non-edible products and ITC’s 35.5% in rigid packs are the nearest public proxies, and both sit below the 40% Category I share for 2026-27.

The carry-forward is not free either. A 2025-26 shortfall carried into 2026-27 adds at least one third of the gap to a year in which the Category I share has already risen ten points, so a company that used the relief faces two steps at once.

A framework: the EPR evidence ladder

To compare disclosure without ranking numbers that do not match, SPI sorts what each company publishes into five rungs, from a bare statement of compliance to the category-level data that the CPCB annual return already holds (Exhibit 10). A higher rung is not a better compliance record; it is more evidence an outside reader can check.

The ladder suggests four profiles. Credit buyers such as HUL publish footprint and credits bought, and report all of it as disposed. Full ledgers such as ITC publish placement, management and a recycled split, plus rigid and flexible recycled content. Portfolio reporters such as Marico publish placement, handled tonnage and portfolio shares, with no route split in the sources read. Neutrality reporters such as Nestlé India publish handled tonnage and its split, but no placement tonnage, so the neutrality claim cannot be sized from outside.

Rung 5 is the gap all four share, and it is the one CPCB already sees. The annual return due by 30 June must show category-wise figures, and since 2026 it also carries rigid pack sales and recycled content (PR-IN-001, PR-IN-002). Publishing the same table would let investors and customers test the floor and the content share themselves.

Scenarios: what the next two years cost

Three SPI calculations follow. Each uses only sourced inputs, one company or one rate at a time, and states its assumptions.

Scenario 1: buy now or pay and catch up. Exhibit 11 compares buying certificates on time with paying compensation first and closing the gap later, using the 2024 price band and the clause 9.5 refunds. Everything is per tonne of shortfall, as a multiple of the compensation rate.

The premium for delay is fixed by the refund ladder, not by the market: 0.25, 0.40 and 0.60 times the compensation rate for one, two and three years. With certificates capped at the compensation rate, paying compensation is never cheaper than buying on time, unless no certificates in the right category can be found.

Scenario 2: the recycling floor on each company’s own tonnage. Exhibit 12 applies the 2026-27 and 2027-28 floors to the two companies that publish a recycled split, holding their handled tonnage flat and bracketing the unknown category mix.

SPI analysis: the step from 2026-27 to 2027-28 is the larger one for both. A company recycling 43% of its handled plastic, as ITC reports, would need its recycled tonnage to rise by about 39% within two years even in the low case. That demand meets a certificate market in which, per CPCB’s July 2026 affidavit as recorded in the SPI tracker, three in four certificates generated since launch had already been transferred.

Scenario 3: HUL’s virgin plastic arithmetic. HUL applies Unilever’s goal of a 30% cut in virgin plastic by 2026 and 40% by 2028 from a 2019 baseline⁶. Its BRSR now gives a recycled share, so the gap can be sized.

SPI calculation: to reach the 2026 cap on a 128,000-tonne footprint, recycled plastic would need to be 47.5% of it, five times the FY 2025-26 share. The goal is Unilever’s, and HUL reports no progress against it, so the gap measures the distance between the group pledge and the Indian numbers, not a legal shortfall.

What remains unclear

• Compensation rates. Schedule II leaves the rupee rate to CPCB guidelines, and SPI has not yet confirmed the current table, so every cost here is a multiple of an unconfirmed INR rate.
• The certificate band in English. The 100% and 30% band comes from SPI’s reading of the Hindi text of G.S.R. 201(E). SPI has not yet confirmed whether CPCB has published band values in rupees.
• The 2022 table text. The 2022 targets and floors in Exhibit 3 come from an OCR copy annexed to a tribunal filing. SPI has not yet confirmed them against the English Gazette page.
• Audit guidance. CPCB’s recycled-content audit guidelines under Note 2 of G.S.R. 237(E) were due within six months of 31 March 2026. SPI has not yet confirmed that they have been issued.
• Company bases. HUL’s footprint year basis is not stated, Marico’s two EPR tonnages are unreconciled and ITC’s rigid and flexible shares are not reconciled with its 3.22% overall figure in the source.