The Sustainability Transition in Food Packaging: Landscape Pressures Leading to Intra- and Inter-Industry Dynamics

Abstract

The chapter portrays the changing inter-industry dynamics of the sustainability transition in Finnish food packaging during 2019–2021. The transition is being driven by European and national regulation and consumer pressure. For the transition to successfully push forward, more needs to be known about how different industries are realigning to develop genuine systemic innovations, which enable the re-configuration of food packaging. We use the multilevel perspective (MLP) as a framework for sustainability transition and show how landscape pressures are driving radical changes in inter and intra industry relationships. The transition demands urgent responses, particularly by the food producing industry, which relies on innovation from another industry, that of food packaging material. Critical elements of the inter industry dynamic are the need for cross-industry collaboration, the urgency of one industry versus the risk aversion of the other and creating a common response to exogeneous pressures that have created intra-industry ruptures and inter-industry instabilities.