The Sustainable Packaging Data Council Expands Its Reporting Templates to Support California and Colorado EPR Requirements

As sustainability regulations continue to evolve, packaging data has become the foundation of credible compliance, transparency, and impact. To help organizations navigate this complexity, Specright launched the Sustainable Packaging Data Council, a group of industry leaders collaborating to align packaging data requirements across the value chain.

What Is the Sustainable Packaging Data Council?

The Sustainable Packaging Data Council was formed to address a growing challenge facing brands, retailers, and suppliers alike: the lack of clarity and consistency in sustainability and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) reporting data.

Companies today are under increasing pressure to collect, manage, and report detailed packaging data to meet regulatory requirements in the U.S. and globally. Too often, this effort is slowed by fragmented data requests, unclear ownership of information, and inconsistent definitions across jurisdictions.

The Council was created to change that. Its goal is to define, harmonize, and standardize the packaging data required for regulatory compliance and credible sustainability reporting. The Council focuses on what data is truly required for different legislation, how it should be defined, and who should own it, enabling reporting entities to spend less time chasing data and more time driving meaningful sustainability outcomes.

The Purpose Highlight: Practical, Usable Reporting Templates

In 2025, the Council delivered its first major output: a standardized template aligned to Oregon’s EPR reporting requirements, developed through weekly collaboration among brands, retailers, packaging suppliers, technology providers, sustainability organizations, and academic institutions.

This work demonstrated the power of aligning around data and, in return, helped to create a repeatable framework that could be extended as regulations expanded.

What’s New: Expanding Beyond Oregon to California and Colorado

Building on that foundation, the Council has now released an updated U.S. EPR Data Requirements reporting template that expands beyond Oregon to include California and Colorado.

This expanded template reflects the reality that EPR compliance is no longer a single-state challenge. While each state has unique rules, they also share a significant overlap in the underlying data required to report accurately and defensibly.

The updated template now:

• Covers California, Colorado, and Oregon EPR requirements in one harmonized framework
• Introduces new attributes needed to support California and Colorado

Like the first version, the template still:

• Clearly defines product-level, component-level, and sales-level data attributes, helping organizations understand which data should be managed internally versus collected from suppliers
• Includes best practices for scalable, repeatable data collection and clearer guidance on data ownership across the supply chain.

By expanding the scope of the template, the Council is helping organizations avoid duplicative efforts and build a single source of truth for packaging data that can support multiple regulatory programs.

Looking Ahead: The Future of the Sustainable Packaging Data Council

The expansion to California and Colorado is not the end of the Council’s work; it’s simply a milestone.

As packaging sustainability enters its next regulatory phase, the Council is evolving to address broader, more complex requirements, including alignment with global regulations such as the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). In 2026, the Council will focus on:

• PPWR data requirements and reporting readiness
• Design-for-recyclability and reuse substantiation
• Clear data ownership between brands and suppliers
• Harmonization across markets
• Scalable, auditable packaging data frameworks

Download the Updated U.S. EPR Data Requirements Report

The expanded U.S. EPR Data Requirements Report is now available for download and provides a detailed breakdown of required and recommended data attributes for California, Colorado, and Oregon.

By aligning on data today, the Sustainable Packaging Data Council is helping organizations prepare not just for current EPR requirements, but for the future of packaging sustainability reporting.

You can download the full report here today: https://www.specright.com/one-pager/us-epr-data-requirements-report/