FORUM 2023 Session Spotlight
Sunday, April 16, 2023
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Sustainable Business, Sustainable Planet
Session Chairs: Justin Green, Comexi and Julian Fernandez, Esko
The Slate of Presenters:
- Dan Collins, CP Flexible Packaging
- Elizabeth Rhue, Sonoco
- Mike Ferrari, Consortium for Waste Circularity
Today converters are in deep waters. Recent research shows that 79 percent of these packaging professionals see sustainability as an opportunity, while only 3 percent feel at risk.
However, almost 100 percent of them are uncertain of exactly what to do for multiple reasons:
- 76 percent don’t know enough about legislation and its pending impact
- 54 percent are not sure about how to manage investments
- 49 percent fears substitution or competitive pressure
- 35 percent are not sure how to discover new opportunities
- 37 percent are uncertain about customer requirements
- 27 percent don’t know if sustainable packages will fit with their technology or product portfolio
- Only 12 percent of converters have formulated a clear sustainability strategy
As a printer/converter, premedia company or basically anyone in the packaging industry, the sustainability session during FTA’s FORUM 2023 is one you’ll want to attend.
We will hear about waste and energy opportunities. We will talk about how legislation is driving change. And we will listen to a converter that has already started walking this journey relay first-hand experience.
If you think that this is not an urgent matter, or that we still have time until there is new legislation in place that will be effective later in time, you might want to think again.
There is this generic idea that nothing is going to start until 2030, which looks far on the horizon. But we would like to invite you to visit some big brands’ websites, like Nestlé, and you can read about what it calls the “Nestlé Net Zero Roadmap.” It dates back to 2018, when the commitment to Zero Greenhouse Gas emissions by 2050 was initially expressed.
If you look closer into Nestlé’s project and read the steps the company is taking, you will find out that it is expecting to have 100 percent of packaging, worldwide, recyclable or reusable by 2025.
Yes—2025!
This is not far in the future. It’s around the corner! And things have already started. Nestlé is claiming a 35 percent reduction in plastic packaging by weight at the end of 2021, a consequence of its product portfolio shift and packaging redesign. It also already changed 80 percent of packaging to recycle plastics and the plan is to increase reusable and refillable packaging, to reach 100 percent by 2025.
Nestlé is only one brand. Take another example, Procter & Gamble. Look at this statement of assurance: “We are working to design all our consumer packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2030. We are inventing and scaling new recycling solutions, using alternative materials, and partnering externally to help catalyze waste management infrastructure to improve access to collection—keeping plastic in use and out of nature.”
We must not refrain from mentioning Coca-Cola and its multi-faceted plan:
- Making 100 percent of packaging recyclable globally by 2025
- Using at least 50 percent recycled material in packaging by 2030
- Collecting and recycling a bottle or can for each one sold by 2030
- Bringing people together to support a healthy, debris-free environment
On top of the changes big brands are setting as goals and promoting on their websites, in America, different states are implementing a set of laws and regulations about packaging and plastics that will affect all printing and converting business.
One example is the Law SB 54 that California Governor Gavin Newsom signed last in June 2022. The law requires that single-use packaging and plastic single-use foodservice ware be recyclable or compostable by 2032. It also requires by 2032 a 25 percent reduction in the sales of plastic packaging and dictates that 65 percent of all single-use plastic packaging to be recycled. And it establishes an accountability group, which will include industry representatives, to run a new recycling program overseen by the state.
California does not stand alone:
- Maine signed in 2021 an Extended Producer Responsibility Law for Packaging, Law LD 1541
- Oregon signed into law SB 582 – the Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act
- Hawaii, SB 1419
- Maryland, HB 36
- Massachusetts, S.610 / H.D. 1553
- New York, S1185A
There are many more are to come. Now that we have explained the necessity for our session, we turn to your charge. Actively participate! Hear from our presenters! Ask them questions!
- Dan Collins from CP Flexible Packaging will be sharing the journey to achieve internal sustainability goals with the assistance of outside partners
- Elizabeth Rhue from Sonoco has both a converter’s and brand owner’s perspective on the legislative and operational challenges facing the packaging industry today and in the future
- Michael Ferrari wants everyone to know that we don’t have a plastics problem, we have a waste problem. He will challenge the normal school of thought and offer that waste should be seen as a valuable resource that can be converted to feedstock for virgin materials through the work of the Consortium for Waste Circularity (CWC)
Hope to see you there!
Learn more about all FORUM 2023’s sessions and register to attend the conference at forum.flexography.org.