Insight Focus
2026 marks a year of pragmatic PET sustainability. Operational gains and flexible practices will drive industry performance. PET’s story of recyclability, efficiency, and versatility is becoming more visible across the supply chain.
PET Industry Embraces Pragmatic Sustainability
One of the things I’ve learned from spending lots of time around the PET industry is that it’s remarkably good at adapting. Just when something looks complicated, expensive, or slightly ludicrous, someone smart fixes it. And then we all move on to the next challenge.
I think 2026 will be one of those years where we stand on the shoulders of the years before.
Sustainability is now fully embedded in the PET industry. We’ve all talked about it so much that we know it’s not going anywhere… but also that it’s not enough to just say a solution is ‘sustainable’. People want to know how. Consumers want to know how. From recycled content to carbon footprint data, and from reporting frameworks to customer audits, we all expect this now as part of our normal operations.
Source: Precedence Research
Even though sustainability is ‘business as usual’, volumes are sometimes unpredictable, and economic challenges are everywhere (not just in PET… but that’s for another day).
And yet, when I talk to producers, converters and brand owners, there is no sense of panic. Rather, there is a pragmatic understanding that solutions have been found, scalability is well in progress, and consumers are still buying what they want and need… not just what they’re being told to buy.
What to Expect in 2026
My first expectation for 2026 is that operational excellence will be firmly in the spotlight. The next production gains won’t come from dramatic reinventions, but from better drying, better process windows, better scrap control, better energy use and better line stability. I know this doesn’t sound very glamorous, but – at scale – it all delivers big impact.
Next, I think flexibility will be the buzzword of 2026. I know this is not new, and people have been throwing it around like ‘customer-focused’ and ‘act local, think global’ in the late aughts. But successful players will have to clearly define what their ‘flexibility’ means – whether it’s variable rPET supply, evolving specifications or smaller MOQs – and then execute it with intention.
Finally, I think the PET industry will be more confident about its own story. No material is perfect, but PET is efficient, recyclable, unbreakable, lightweight and endlessly customisable.
While I can’t quite describe myself as a ‘storyteller’, I do love interviewing a PET industry leader and sharing a technical topic in a way that brings real-life interest, balanced with commercial strategy. The FMCG supply chain needs PET more than it likes to admit, so let’s share the story in the right way—for everyone’s sake.
