These are the questions we set out to answer with our first-ever industry-wide Packaging and the Environment survey, which was carried out during March. Some 142 packaging experts on the supply side - manufacturers and designers - and 63 buyers took part in the survey from across the UK.

Some interesting trends emerge. First is the broad similarity in importance afforded to many of the elements that can improve packaging's sustainability credentials.

Lightweighting, for instance, is top of the tree for both buyers and suppliers when it comes to improving the environmental performance of their packs - despite moves in, for instance, part two of the Courtauld Commitment away from weight as the key measure of sustainability.

The growing importance of carbon measurement in much of the discourse around packaging's environmental impact is also reflected in the results, with around a quarter more buyers and suppliers expecting to undertake carbon footprint measurements for their packaging over the next year than they did in the past 12 months.

Yet for all this, environmental credentials play second fiddle to cost considerations in driving changes to packaging. This would surprise few people in good economic times; it will surprise fewer given the recent recession. Our figures also show that in sales pitches, both suppliers and buyers are far more interested in price, quality and customer service than they are in sustainability credentials.

This may be a sign of the cost-conscious times in which we are living; or it suggests that packaging's environmental credentials are taken for granted. It could also reinforce what many sceptics on packaging reduction schemes have been saying for some time - that cost reduction and sustainability improvements often go hand in hand.