Italy: Environmental Labeling Requirements for Packaging

Updated on Mar. 28, 2022

September 2020 the Italian Legislative Decree 116/2020 amended article 219(5) of the Environmental Regulations of Italy (Legislative Decree 152/2006).

The amendment introduced mandatory environmental labelling on packaging in Italy for B2C and B2B packaging. The decree reads as follows:

"All packaging must be appropriately labeled in accordance with the procedures established by the applicable UNI technical standards and in compliance with the decisions adopted by the European union to facilitate the collection, reuse, recovery and recycling of packaging, and to provide correct information to consumers on the final destination of packaging. For the purposes of identifying and classifying packaging, producers are also obliged to indicate the nature of the packaging materials used, based on Commission Decision 97/129/EC."

On Feb 28, 2022, Law 15/2022 (conversion into law, with amendments, of the decree-law 228/2021) postponed the application of the environmental labeling to January 1, 2023 The original application date was January 1, 2022 and then moved to July 1, 2022. 

Packaging that does not have environmental labelling and has already been sold or otherwise labelled as of January 1, 2023, may still be sold while stocks last.

The Italian Ministry for the Ecological Transition must publish guidelines with details of the application and environmental labelling in the coming weeks. (A first ministerial notice on this issue was published May 2021.)

How UL can help

UL can support you in the application of the environmental labelling of packaging and offers a portfolio with a wide range of services such as:

• General guidance to help you verify compliance to new Italian packaging requirements
• Technical evaluation of your products with one or more packaging elements to help meet environmental labelling requirements

We offer solutions help you differentiate your product from competitors, including:

• ISTA packaging test
• Amazon APASS and ISTA 6 Testing
• Medical devices packaging testing
• Packaging validation and stability studies for device transport and storage
• Chemical and microbiological analysis according to global requirements
• Environmental Claim Validation Program
• UL ECOLOGO certification
• Turbo Carbon^TM, a carbon emissions software to provide carbon footprint reporting on packaging

Official Sources:

https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/2022/02/28/22A01375/sg

https://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:decreto.legislativo:2006-04-03;152!vig=2022-01-01