The first EPR reporting cycle answered one question: can you comply? This webinar tackles the next question: how do you use everything you learned to reduce risk, lower future costs, and make smarter packaging decisions?

For many producers, 2026 was the year packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) stopped being a future regulatory concern and became an operational reality. Companies navigated major reporting requirements in California, Colorado, and Oregon, emerging obligations in additional states, and California’s first Individual Source Reduction Plan deadline.

This webinar will examine what producers learned from the 2025 and 2026 reporting cycles, including common challenges involving packaging data, state-specific classifications, internal ownership, and coordination across business functions. It will also provide an update on the evolving U.S. regulatory landscape, including implementation developments in Maine, recent litigation affecting packaging EPR programs, and California’s source-reduction and recyclability requirements.

Most importantly, the session will look beyond reporting. As EPR fees, eco-modulation, source-reduction mandates, and recyclability standards begin influencing the cost of packaging, producers must increasingly connect compliance data with packaging design and broader business strategy. Attendees will learn how to use the work completed during the first reporting cycles to establish a repeatable data architecture, reduce future compliance burdens, and identify packaging changes that may deliver both environmental and financial benefits.

Attendees will learn:

• Identify and address the most common packaging-data gaps before the next reporting cycle.

• Establish clear internal ownership and a repeatable cross-functional process for EPR data collection and reporting.

• Evaluate how material and component classifications may affect reporting obligations and future EPR fees.

• Connect EPR reporting data with source reduction, eco-modulation, and packaging-transformation opportunities.

• Prioritize immediate compliance steps if their organization has not yet registered, reported, or addressed California’s Individual Source Reduction Plan requirements.