PET Industry: Why data sovereignty is becoming a competitive issue

The PET and plastic packaging industry is under increasing pressure. Sustainability requirements, regulatory requirements and increasing product diversity are fundamentally changing the demands placed on manufacturers. Topics such as recycling rates, material origin, carbon footprint, ESG reporting and digital product passports have long since become part of the operational business.

With these requirements comes a whole new challenge: the question of control over your own data.

Although the relevant product, material and sustainability information is available in many companies, it is distributed across different systems, departments and data structures. ERP systems, Excel lists, specialized applications and document repositories exist side by side without a common logic.

In the PET industry in particular, seamless data control is a prerequisite for the ability to act. The numerous requirements for the digital provision of information can only be met efficiently if product and material data is structured, linked and available at all times.

What is missing is not access to data, but control over its structure, linking and use.

An example: Your most important customer requests proof of the recycled content of a certain product at short notice, which includes the material origin, CO₂ footprint and valid certificates. In many companies, the required data has to be laboriously compiled by several people from various systems.

Companies that have controlled and structured product data can generate this verification directly from their system - consistently, verifiably and in a short time. And that is the difference between an event-driven approach and strategic, proactive data management.

A large quantity of yellow-green plastic caps in an industrial production facility for PET packaging, unsorted in a metal container. — What works in production quickly becomes a problem with data: without structure, quantity is just quantity.

See you at the trade fair?

Together with Pimcore, +Pluswerk will be on site at the PETnology Conference on June 10 and 11, 2026 in Switzerland .

On Wednesday, 10 June, Mike Streibl (Digital Transformer +Pluswerk) and Patrick Redtenbacher (Sales Executive Pimcore) will talk about the topic "You optimize your production - but not your data" from 15:40.

Arrange a personal appointment with us, we look forward to meeting you!

Arrange a meeting now

For more genuine data sovereignty

In many companies, data availability is already considered a success. The systems are connected, information can be retrieved and reports can be created. But this is where a misunderstanding often begins: access to data does not automatically mean that a company also has control over it.

Access merely means being able to see and use data. Control, on the other hand, means being able to actively shape its structure, its links and its use. Only when companies define their own data models, clearly assign responsibilities and keep information consistent across systems does true data sovereignty emerge.

Real data control can be seen in several dimensions:

in transparency across the entire product life cycle,
in the ability to flexibly adapt data models,
and in the integration of information across system boundaries.

Only when all these factors interact can product, material and sustainability data be reliably controlled and further developed. Digital sovereignty is therefore not achieved through access to data, but through the ability to use it as an active management tool within the company.

Sovereignty = architecture + platform

Digital sovereignty is not created by individual systems, but by the interaction of data architecture and platform. Many companies try to solve data problems with additional tools. However, without a clear structural basis, each system remains just another building block in a fragmented landscape.

Only when data models, integrations and responsibilities are considered together can an environment be created in which data is not only available but can also be actively controlled. This is precisely where it is decided whether companies control their data or remain dependent on their systems.

An abstract representation of a digital platform comprising various modules, diagrams and interfaces that are interconnected and illustrate data integration and control — It is not individual tools that create control, but their interaction: only architecture and platform make data truly controllable.

🔐 Control instead of dependency

Companies can decide for themselves how their product data is structured, maintained and used - independently of individual systems or proprietary platforms.

🔄 Ability to act in real time

The data is available in a consistent and linked format. This means that requirements such as audits, ESG reporting or customer inquiries can be fulfilled quickly, securely and without manual coordination.

🌍 Future-proof database

New regulatory requirements, markets or business models can be mapped flexibly without having to rebuild existing data structures.

Sovereignty becomes an obligation

Digital sovereignty is not created by individual systems, but by the interaction of data architecture and platform. Only when data is modeled in a structured way, integrated across systems and flexibly expandable can companies actively control their information instead of just reacting to it.

Platforms play a decisive role here, as they create the technical basis for organizing data centrally, keeping it consistent and making it usable in different contexts. However, it is not the platform alone that is decisive, but the way in which data is structured and linked together on it.

This is precisely where modern solutions such as Pimcore come in. They enable product, material and sustainability data to be brought together in an integrated environment and modeled along real processes - open, scalable and adaptable to individual requirements.

Let's talk about it at PETnology

The challenges surrounding product data, variant management and digital sovereignty are currently occupying many companies in the PET industry. We would like to discuss these topics with you at the PETnology Conference on June 10 and 11, 2026 in Switzerland.