Specright — known for its specification management software — has convened the Sustainable Packaging Data Council to harmonize sustainability data and speed up Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) reporting. The council debuts with the introduction of a reporting template for Oregon’s EPR standards.
The Founders
Founding members span the full value chain: retailers and brands like Costco, Tyson Foods, Central Garden & Pet, Sonoco, and Atlantic Packaging; tech partners Lorax EPI and Trayak; sustainability nonprofits such as How2Recycle; plus industry analysts and academic leaders, including Michigan State University. Specright is serving as both host and technology partner, leading the development of the reporting templates.
Setting Industry Standards
- Regulatory maze: Companies face fast-evolving EPR rules across states and markets—and often lack clean, supplier-level data to comply.
- Time sink: Standardized data attributes mean less time chasing spreadsheets, more time innovating.
- Signal to the market: A cross-value-chain council sets a baseline others can adopt, reducing friction and cost.
A Collaborative Future
- “Sustainability initiatives are more than checking a regulatory box,” said Matthew Wright, Specright founder and executive chairman. “Companies will spend less time chasing data and more time driving real impact.”
- Caroline DeLoach, director of sustainability at Atlantic Packaging: “Involving the whole value chain helped us drill into what data are truly necessary for effective EPR.”
Making EPR Compliance Easier
- Weekly work flows in 2025: Members aligned on common reporting attributes for Oregon’s EPR.
- Template out now: A downloadable schema brands and suppliers can use to standardize collection and submission.
- Next up: Additional templates for other U.S. EPR programs and shared best practices for end-to-end data capture.
This is less about software features and more about governance and interoperability. Templates create a common language for materials, formats, and attributes — critical for connecting supplier specs, packaging bills of materials, and product hierarchies.
The Oregon EPR Template
- One source of truth for packaging specs across SKUs and suppliers
- From weeks to days to compile reports when attributes are predefined
- Fewer reworks as suppliers adopt the same attribute lists and definitions
Oregon is the first domino. With more states advancing in EPR programs, early standardization helps avoid a patchwork of incompatible data asks.
Harmonized templates are a pragmatic step toward compliance at scale — and a foundation for broader sustainability analytics (recyclability, PCR content, greenhouse gas impacts).