PET Forward Decarbonization Roadmap

A Practical Path to Lower-Emission PET Bottles

The US PET bottle industry already has a practical roadmap to reduce life cycle greenhouse gas emissions while strengthening domestic manufacturing, expanding recycling, and advancing circularity.

Developed by the Eastern Research Group (ERG) in partnership with NAPCOR, PET Forward: A Decarbonization Roadmap for the PET Packaging Value Chain identifies proven and emerging strategies that can work together to reduce emissions from US PET beverage bottle systems through 2050.

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Key Findings

Approximately 57%: Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity
By 2050, the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions intensity of the PET beverage bottle systems studied could decline by approximately 57%.

Approximately 42%: Reduction in total annual emissions
Even as production grows, total annual greenhouse gas emissions from the systems studied could decline by about 42% by 2050.

Multiple solutions. One practical pathway.
Recycling, recycled content, lightweighting, renewable energy, manufacturing efficiency, stronger collection systems, and continued innovation can work together to achieve meaningful reductions.

Many of the Largest Opportunities Are Available Today

PET Forward shows that meaningful emissions reductions do not depend solely on future breakthroughs. Many can be achieved through commercially available technologies and practices already deployed across the PET value chain.

• Increase collection and recycling: Capture more of the valuable PET already in circulation.
• Use more recycled PET: Keep material in use while reducing demand for virgin resources.
• Continue lightweighting: Reduce material demand, transportation impacts, and energy use.
• Expand renewable energy: Lower emissions associated with PET and bottle manufacturing.
• Improve manufacturing efficiency: Reduce energy use and emissions throughout production.
• Advance emerging solutions: Build on today’s progress as new technologies and materials mature.

No single technology, policy, or business practice will achieve deep emissions reductions on its own. Progress depends on multiple strategies working together across the PET value chain.

Grounded in Life Cycle Science

ERG, an independent environmental consulting firm, developed PET Forward: A Decarbonization Roadmap for the PET Packaging Value Chain in partnership with NAPCOR. The ISO-compliant, peer-reviewed roadmap builds on NAPCOR’s ISO-compliant, peer-reviewed 2023 life cycle assessment of predominant US PET beverage bottle systems.

Using industry data, current technologies, and projected adoption scenarios, the roadmap evaluates how complementary strategies could reduce greenhouse gas emissions through 2050.

Building on PET’s Sustainability Advantages

PET Forward builds on characteristics that already make polyethylene terephthalate (PET, universally recognized by the #1 inside the triangle) an efficient and highly recyclable packaging material.

A sustainable package must first perform its essential function: protecting its contents and delivering them safely while helping prevent product damage and spoilage. PET does this while using relatively little material.

PET packaging has also become increasingly lightweight, helping reduce material use, secondary packaging, transportation weight, fuel requirements, and associated greenhouse gas emissions. And because PET is recyclable, recovered bottles and containers provide valuable raw material for new PET packaging and other products.

PET is the most recycled plastic in the world. The opportunity now is to collect and recycle more of the PET already in circulation while continuing to reduce emissions throughout its life cycle.