ISO/TR 18607 is ISO's guidance on environmentally conscious packaging design, published in October 2025 as a technical report rather than a standard. The six ISO packaging and environment standards set out what a producer should assess. This one shows those assessments being carried out, on real packaging.
It is the first new piece of that family since 2013, and most of it is worked examples.
Read the packaging standards quickly and they sound like one instruction, use less material. ISO's own introduction warns the opposite, because a pack pushed past the point where it still protects the product does more environmental harm, not less.
ISO/TR 18607 in outline
The headline facts, before any of the detail.
| Detail | ISO/TR 18607 |
|---|---|
| Document | ISO/TR 18607 |
| Full title | Packaging and the environment, information on environmentally conscious packaging design |
| First edition | 2025, published in October 2025 |
| Status | Published |
| Type | Technical Report, informative guidance and not a certification |
| Published by | ISO/TC 122 (Packaging), subcommittee SC 4 (Packaging and the environment) |
| Built on | ISO 18601 to ISO 18606, the six packaging and environment standards |
| Mostly examples | The numbered clauses end on page 13, the six annexes run from page 14 to page 52 |
What environmentally conscious packaging design means
The phrase sounds soft, but ISO gives it a hard shape in the introduction to the 2025 edition.
The design principles in the packaging and environment standards require environmental consideration while ensuring that the inherent packaging functions are maintained. That is two conditions holding at the same time, and the second is the one people drop.
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The environmental impact comes down. Less material, or material that can be reused, recycled or recovered once the pack has done its job.
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The packaging still works. It still protects the product, still survives transport and storage, and still does what the person opening it needs it to do.
That is what separates this from eco-design as a general idea. The standards do not ask for the greenest possible pack. They ask for the lowest impact that still clears the functionality the pack was built for.
The six assessments the report walks through
Clause 5 is the working core of the document. It takes the six standards one at a time and describes the assessment procedure that belongs to each, in the order a producer would work through them.
| Standard | The assessment it carries |
|---|---|
| ISO 18601 | The general requirements and the assessment flow for the series as a whole |
| ISO 18602 | Optimization of the packaging system |
| ISO 18603 | Reuse |
| ISO 18604 | Material recycling |
| ISO 18605 | Energy recovery |
| ISO 18606 | Organic recycling |
Clause 5 then closes with what ISO calls the assessment report of ISO 18601, which is where the results of the individual assessments come back together in one place.
Everything after that is examples. Annex A gives a practical explanation of packaging system optimization, Annex B works through a liquid detergent container, and Annex C runs an actual case study against the ISO 18602 checklist.
Annex D is a full self-assessment of environmentally conscious packaging design, Annex E lists examples of assessment standards, and Annex F describes the packaging system. All six are informative, and they take up pages 14 to 52 against 13 pages of numbered clauses.
Why cutting packaging too far backfires
This is the part worth reading even if you never open an annex.
ISO's introduction says that if the packaging reduction principle is pursued excessively, the packaging can no longer maintain its basic function of protecting the product inside, and the result is a more serious burden on the environment rather than a smaller one.
It is an unusually blunt line for a standards document, and it is aimed squarely at the way reduction targets get set.
Concretely, a carton trimmed until it crushes in transit saves nothing. It costs the material in the first carton, the material in the replacement, and the product that was ruined inside the first one.
The footprint of the goods is almost always larger than the footprint of the pack around them.
What the report offers instead of a target
There is no weight that is right for every pack, so the document does not try to name one. It leads with worked examples, and what a producer takes from them is a way of showing their work.
The point is that where you stopped reducing becomes a decision you can explain to someone else, rather than a number you have to defend.
What the six standards do not cover
The report opens with an honest admission about its own family.
The scope of the packaging and environment standards does not cover the processes of basic packaging design, including the choice of material. ISO says plainly that those processes are the main factors determining the environmental impact of the packaging.
In other words, the series assesses a pack after the decisions that matter most have already been taken.
The clause ISO added to fill the gap
So ISO/TR 18607 puts a clause of its own in front of the assessments. Clause 4 deals with basic packaging specification and design and how it relates to the standards. Five things get fixed at that stage, the type of packaging, the packaging materials, the structure, the size and dimensions, and the closure type and its functions.
ISO describes that work as a plan, do, check, act cycle run during development, with the specification revisited as the design firms up. It gives the document two halves, one covering the design decisions taken before the series applies and one covering the six assessments inside it.
Who ISO/TR 18607 is written for
The scope line is deliberately broad. The report applies to all suppliers responsible for placing packaging or packaged goods on the market, which covers the companies that make the packaging, the brands that fill it and the importers that bring it in.
In practice that breaks into three groups, and they open the document for three different reasons.
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Packaging designers and developers. They pick the material, the structure and the closure, which is the clause 4 work, and they are the audience for the optimization examples in Annexes A to C.
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Brand owners and producers. They carry the extended producer responsibility obligation and pay the fees that follow from how the pack is built, so the assessment outcome lands on their budget.
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Whoever has to write the assessment up. Compliance and quality teams get Annex D, a self-assessment case study, which is the closest thing in the document to a template.
Where ISO/TR 18607 fits under the PPWR assessment rules
The EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, never mentions ISO/TR 18607. The overlap is in what the regulation asks producers to produce.
Annex VII of the regulation sets out what belongs in a manufacturer's technical documentation. One of the required elements is a qualitative description of how the assessments under Articles 6, 10 and 11 were carried out.
That is a written account of how you checked, not just the conclusion you reached. Those three articles line up with three of the six standards the report walks through.
| What PPWR asks you to assess | The matching standard |
|---|---|
| Article 6, recyclability | ISO 18604, material recycling |
| Article 10, packaging minimisation | ISO 18602, optimization of the packaging system |
| Article 11, reusability | ISO 18603, reuse |
Article 10 is the closest fit of the three. From 1 January 2030, packaging has to be designed so its weight and volume are reduced to the minimum necessary to ensure functionality.
Article 10(4) then says compliance is demonstrated in the Annex VII technical documentation, and that the documentation has to identify, for each performance criterion, the design requirements that prevent further reduction of weight or volume. The regulation is asking for exactly what ISO's introduction warns about, the point past which a pack stops working.
Where the report stops
Reading it is not a route to conformity. By 12 February 2027 the Commission has to ask the European standardisation organisations for harmonised standards setting out how minimisation is calculated and measured, and those are what a conformity claim will eventually rest on. What ISO/TR 18607 gives a producer is a worked example of the assessment itself.
The record of that assessment then sits alongside the EU Declaration of Conformity and the rest of the PPWR paperwork, which is the kind of record an EPR platform like Repax keeps.
What ISO/TR 18607 adds to the 2013 packaging standards
Everything else in this family was published in 2013. Here is what each piece does and where the new report sits among them.
| Document | What it does |
|---|---|
| ISO 18601 to ISO 18606 | The six standards. Each sets requirements for one part of packaging and the environment, from the general framework through optimization, reuse, material recycling, energy recovery and organic recycling |
| ISO/TR 16218 | A technical report covering chemical recovery processes for packaging |
| ISO/TR 17098 | A technical report listing substances and materials that may impede recycling, the practical companion to ISO 18604 |
| ISO/TR 18607 | A technical report on how the assessments in the six standards are actually carried out, with worked examples |
Two things follow from that table.
The first is a wording point that matters more than it looks. The six are standards, and packaging conforms to them. The three technical reports are informative. You read them and you use them, and neither you nor your packaging can be certified to any of the six either.
The second is geographic. ISO notes that national standards matching ISO 18601 to ISO 18606 were issued in some countries, while in Europe the European Standards, the EN series, served as the basis for the packaging and environment standards.
A European producer will usually meet this material through the EN documents first, with the ISO family sitting behind them as the international version.
Frequently asked questions about ISO/TR 18607
Short, plain answers to the questions that come up most about the report.
What is ISO/TR 18607?
ISO/TR 18607 is a technical report, published by ISO in October 2025, giving information on environmentally conscious packaging design based on the six ISO packaging and environment standards. It explains how the assessments in those standards are carried out, with worked examples from real packaging.
Is ISO/TR 18607 a standard or a technical report?
A technical report. ISO 18601 to ISO 18606 are the standards in this family, and they carry requirements. ISO/TR 18607, ISO/TR 17098 and ISO/TR 16218 are technical reports, which carry information and guidance instead. Every annex in ISO/TR 18607 is marked informative.
Can you get certified to ISO/TR 18607?
No. There is no certification and nothing to be audited against, because it is guidance you read and apply. The same holds for the six standards behind it, which packaging conforms to rather than holds a certificate for.
What edition of ISO/TR 18607 is current?
The first edition, dated October 2025. There is no earlier version. Everything else in the ISO 18600 packaging and environment family dates from 2013, which makes this the newest document in the set by twelve years.
Which standards does ISO/TR 18607 cover?
Six of them. ISO 18601 for the general requirements and the assessment flow, ISO 18602 for optimization of the packaging system, ISO 18603 for reuse, ISO 18604 for material recycling, ISO 18605 for energy recovery and ISO 18606 for organic recycling. Clause 5 gives each one its own assessment procedure.
Does ISO/TR 18607 help with PPWR compliance?
Indirectly. PPWR requires a qualitative description of how the recyclability, minimisation and reusability assessments were carried out in the Annex VII technical documentation, and this report shows such an assessment being run. The regulation never names it, though, and following it does not demonstrate conformity.
What is the difference between ISO/TR 18607 and ISO 18602?
ISO 18602 is the standard that sets the requirements for optimizing a packaging system. ISO/TR 18607 is the report that shows an ISO 18602 assessment being done, including a case study run against the checklist and a worked example on a liquid detergent container. One sets the rule, the other demonstrates it.
Does ISO/TR 18607 replace ISO/TR 17098 or ISO/TR 16218?
No. All three remain separate documents with separate jobs. ISO/TR 17098 lists substances and materials that can get in the way of recycling, ISO/TR 16218 covers chemical recovery processes, and ISO/TR 18607 covers how the six assessments are carried out.
