2025 Sustainability Review: How Eco-Friendly Cards Changed Business

The End of PVC Card Dominance

For decades, PVC cards were the industry default choice for event passes, ID cards, loyalty cards and access passes. However, 2025 marked a significant turning point. The events industry, long frustrated with single-use plastic waste throughout their industry, were experiencing the disposal of millions of plastic ID badges. However, with enviricard they finally had a solution.

When major event company, cVent, began integrating enviricards’ biodegradable, compostable and recyclable cards into their existing systems, it signalled that sustainable PVC card alternatives had established their use. 

Eco Friendly Cards Prove Their Worth

Eco friendly cards have been able to rival PVC performance at competitive prices. Enviricard’s paperboard invercote, sourced from Holmen Board & Paper’s sustainable regenerative forestry, proved it is a serious contender in the card market this year. 

Enviricard now allows businesses to reduce their plastic-waste and carbon emissions in a meaningful and significant way. 

Measuring Real Impact

Companies can now switch to sustainable cards with the knowledge that they are making a measurable positive impact on their ESG objectives or sustainability goals. Using our carbon calculator, you can discover the benefits of switching to enviricard and furthering your businesses environmental responsibility. Switching from plastic PVC cards to enviricards sustainable alternative reduces: carbon emissions by 57% and plastic waste your business sends to landfill. Enviricards are CarbonQuota independently certified as biodegradable and compostable to EN13432 returning to the earth from where it began. As well as, recyclable in standard PRF paper mills. 

Not only does this benefit businesses sustainability throughout the year, but it also is supplemented by improved customer relations. Some studies suggest 76% of consumers would stop buying from companies that neglect their environmental responsibility. Yet most organisations still issue plastic cards for ID's, membership cards and access cards, which are often popular customer facing touchpoints. 

Greenwashing Lost Its Hold on Sustainable Cards 

Similar to border sustainability movements, greenwashing has always posed a risk to the credibility of businesses with their customer base. This year a global study by Blue Yonder found that 78% of consumers say sustainability is important in their purchasing decision, however only 20% actually believe businesses' sustainability claims. This shows the belief in unsupported sustainability claims by businesses to be dropping. 

The common complaints from customers in this study indicated that a lack of follow up evidence or sufficient information on sustainability claims were the biggest factor contributing to this decline in trust. The good news is that enviricards can quantify its sustainability impact, using independently verified data from DS Smith and CarbonQuota. 

Strategic Partnerships Accelerate Change

The acceleration of sustainable card adoption in 2025 came from partnerships such as with cVent. Read the full case study to understand the significance of this relationship for the event industry and the sustainable card industry.

This collaboration proved a critical insightL sustainability does not require operational sacrifice. Enviricards can seamlessly integrate into existing card printing operations using DTC printers such as Magicard, Evolis, Zebra, Matica and Entrust.

Making the Switch Now

The transition from traditional PVC to sustainable alternatives has never been easier. Eco friendly cards provide a highly effective alternative to plastic PVC cards for major use cases: event passes, ID cards, loyalty cards, membership cards, gift cards, and access cards.

Whether you need event badges that eliminate single-use plastic, loyalty cards that reflect your brand values, or membership cards that impress sustainability-conscious customers, the sustainable option is now the smart business choice. Paperboard cards deliver the performance you need with the environmental responsibility your stakeholders are looking for in 2026.

Enquire now to make the switch