Sebastian Faber
18 / 03 / 26·7 Min read
Data Management
Imagine a trading partner were to demand proof that your packaging is in compliance with the new EU regulations. Not anytime in the future, but right now.
With the PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) this will become reality. The regulation has come into effect since the 11th of February 2025, the most requirements take effect on the 12th of August 2026 in all EU member states.
The regulation’s objective is to reduce packaging waste, promote recycling, and create more transparancy throughout the entire value chain. For companies, this means: Packaging must be documented much more precisely in the future and managed in a tracable manner.
Since the PPWR (EU packaging regulation) does not only regulate material requirements. It also creates new legal determinations on substance restrictions, recyclability, information requirements, labeling, and record-keeping for the entire supply and delivery chain.
All these requirements have one thing in common: structured, consistent data. In this article, we demonstrate how to tackle this challenge head on and why a PIM system partakes a central role in this. Spoiler: Without clean data structures, the PPWR will be quick to overwhelm you with complexity. With the right PIM, this will be signficantly easier to manage. Before shedling light on the solution, however, having a glance at what the regulation is demanding specficially will already be of great advantage.
With PPWR, packaging as a whole is undertaking a drastic paradigm shift. What used to be a question of the choice of material and logistics back in the day is continuously developing into a matter of documentation, traceability, and data quality.
The regulation concerns eacha and every industrial agent across the entire value chain, including manufacturers, delivery, sales, and fulfillment service providers. On the 12th of August at the latest, all companies must guarantee that their packaging complies with the newest requirements, such as, for example:
Additionally, there are new labeling and information requirements. Harmonizing labels and digital data record keepers – such as QR codes – are, based on current rulings, scheduled for August 2028. The aim of the stricter requirements is to integrate packaging more strongly into a well-functoning circular economy.
All this indicates a clear treand: with 2026, the regulation is legally binding. 2028, the transparency revolving around packaging will increase significantly once more.
Here, too, the actual challenge does not wait for the legal text. It starts where companies must organize, document, and systematically administrate these challenges in daily business.
On paper, the PPWR initially seems rather managable: comply with material limits, consider recyclability, and add some labels here and there. In practice, a much different challenge will be quick to surface, however: where would the information to do so even come from?
In many companies, packaging data is scattered across multiple departments. Fabric specifications come by packaging suppliers, weights are measured by sale, certificates are handed out by quality assurance, whereas label texts are produced by marketing.
For as long as such information is only required internally, these structures run surprisingly well. As soon as requirements such as PPWR enter into the picture to demand documentation and traceability, the glaring gaps become apparent.
On top of all this: Packaging often time changes faster than the product itself. New material compositions, adjustments to recycled content, or revised labeling requirements make it so that information must be updated at regular intervals. It is here where the actual complexity of PPWR comes into full effect: not in the form of legal texts but in the management of all related data. And precisely this is the ture stress test for the robustness of your own processes.
The requirements of the packaging regulation can only be reliably implemented if all packaging information is always available in a structured, centralized, and consistent manner. Material details, weight, or certifiers must not be scattered across various lists, documents, and isolated systems. They must all be pooled into a single source of truth.
Of particular relevance is the use case where a lot of products use the same packaging. Then it is no longer sufficient to make each and every change manually every time. It must be managed centrally and distributable to wherever the packaging is actually put to use.
Herein lies the value of a PIM system: It creates a consistent data foundation and makes packaging information easily managable. Not only in theory but in day-to-day operative buisness.
While many companies are still gathering their packaging data manually, they are structured systematically for use via PIM. This structured data basis is the very condition for consistently documentation, updating, and distributing packaging information in the future. Just how impactful the difference to a distributive data management and clean structures is once put into practice is easily demonstrated by taking a look at everyday business.
Three products, one package, multiple data record versions. Sales is still operating with the old material details. Marketing is already working with the new labels. While the packaging supplier already has an updated specification for the longest time. For as long as the information is only circulating internally, this often times remains undetected.
With requirements such as the PPWR, however, this will be quick to grow into a problem. After all, what is decisive is not whether a pierce of information is available somewhere. What is decisive is that you can rely on it being always up-to-date, consistent, and traceable.
Here is where the actual challenge emerges: not in the form of individual restrictions but in the question of how packaging information is created, maintained, and distributed in companies. Those who continue to work with scattered data records creates unnecessary friction. Those, to the contrary, that approach it with structure will have the foundation for a process that remains consistent even under regulatory pressure.
And this is where ATAMYA comes into play: When packaging information are created across different sources, a system is required that can unify them and make them controllable. ATAMYA is an authentic Multi-Domain PIM centered our flexible data models by design. Equipped with it, you can structurally build up, centrally manage, and consistently distribute product-related information.
For PPWR-relevant packaging data, this is a clear advantage. Information about materials, labels, or further packaging attributes do not remain stuck in a isolated files or departments but are merged into a resilient data foundation.
The reduces complexity in everyday business and fulfills the condition to cleanly manage and maintain packaging information while also providing it for subsequent processes. The regulatory obligations thus do not result in data chaos but turn into a process that runs smoothly.
The EU packaging regulation indicates where both product and packaging information are headed to: away from crude declarations towards more transparency, traceability, and digital availability.
With the Digital Product Pass (DPP), the next topic has already entered the room where well-structured data is required. That is to say, companies that organize their packaging information as early as today are not only reacting to the PPWR. They are, at the same time, creating the very foundation for what is to come next.
Herein lies the strategic value: Those who bring their data into order right now does not have to gather the necessary information from scratch every time later.
PPWR makes apparent what has been underestimated by many companies for the longest time: packaging compliance is also a question of data.
The clearer packaging information is structured, maintained, and distributed, the more manageable it comes integrating it into daily business. Not only with the requirements starting from the 12th of August 2026 in mind, but also everything that will follow after it.
A PIM system does not realize the regulation on its own but creates the necessary and sufficient condition to implement it in an operatively clean manner. This is how regulatory pressure turns into a chance to make data structures future-proof.
Author:
Sebastian Faber
Senior Digital Performance & Marketing Operations Manager
ATAMYA
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