Waste Management Inc. and sustainability leader William McDonough are partnering to help develop packaging design innovation for businesses.

The initiative, called the Waste Management McDonough Sustainable Innovation Collaborative, will focus on serving producers, retailers and suppliers of packaged goods and helping them achieve their sustainability goals, according to a news release.

Designing products and packaging for recyclability as well as environmental and human health will be among the goals of the partnership between Houston-based Waste Management and the Charlottesville, Va.-based McDonough Innovation. McDonough is a designer, author and sustainability thought leader.

Commenting on Waste Management’s experience in serving a wide range of businesses and communities with sustainability goals, David Steiner, president and CEO, said, “Now we’re prepared to help nurture and support further progress not only in sustainable packaging but also in addressing the full product life-cycle, with a practical eye toward waste elimination, reducing environmental impact and increasing value from waste.”

McDonough added, “This is a unique new avenue for innovation. What we have previously thought of as ‘waste streams’ can be transformed into positive, safe, healthy resource reuse systems that bring value to their communities in many forms.”