Case Study: Unpackit Awards

The Challenge

Packaging is pervasive and necessary to support our modern economy – but not all packaging delivers meaningful value. Many products are excessively packaged, poorly designed for reuse, oversized, unrecyclable, or make sustainability claims that are confusing, misleading, or unfounded.

Packaging accounts for ~ 58% of litter collected nationally, making it a major pollutant.

Despite a national 2025 target to ensure 70% of plastic packaging is recycled, only 19% was recovered for recycling in 2022–23, highlighting the gap between ambition and outcomes.

The nation awaits packaging reform and regulation. Currently, some organisations blatantly disregard the environmental impact of their packaging, operate in a legislative vacuum, and the general public has become increasingly frustrated by excessive and wasteful packaging. 

At the same time, some have innovated to make their packaging more sustainable.

Our Approach

To spotlight these issues publicly, give a voice to Australians, drive a national conversation and meaningful systems change, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Plastic Free Foundation and WWF-Australia established the Unpackit Awards in 2025.

Australians can nominate packaging from retail, the postal system and hospitality settings they believe is either great, or … not so great! 

Any Awards initiative requires robust governance and expert judgement, so that outcomes are trustworthy, influential, and credibly inform future policy.

Assessing packaging against circular economy principles is inherently complex. 

There is no single ‘scorecard’ that captures environmental impact, design quality, reusability, litter potential and end-of-life outcomes. Definitions of what constitutes ‘excessive’, genuinely ‘reusable’ or ‘refillable’ packaging are often contested, and credibility depends on more than opinion or the material the packaging is made from – it requires a holistic, systems-based approach, underpinned by a deep understanding of packaging and the systems it operates within. 

Bel’s Role in the Unpackit Awards

Bel was invited to serve on the technical and judging expert panel, providing independent technical and strategic advice to support credibility and integrity.

This included working alongside other experts from industry, academia and consulting to:

• Establish definitions and judging framework, and principles
• Design robust, defensible criteria for assessing packaging
• Assess a shortlist of entries, following initial assessment

Bel also supported the Awards by:

• Sourcing a qualified data scientist through her networks to streamline and support the awards entries
• Providing advice on best practice awards governance, process and record keeping based on her experience judging the Banksia Awards and the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation Awards
• Promoting the Awards on national radio, at the Woodford Folk Festival and her social media networks – with humour and flair!

Her contribution draws on over twenty years’ experience spanning the entire packaging value chain, across waste and recycling systems, infrastructure implementation, recycling and reuse programs, and leadership roles in larger retailers, including Sustainable Packaging Manager at Australia Post.

The result

This contribution ensures the awards are a credible mechanism for public engagement, expert evaluation, and system-level influence, and that they are evaluated consistently and against realistic benchmarks.

The nominations from the general public are being assessed in early 2026 – stay tuned!