New packaging and strategies to enhance your sustainability plan

Abstract Text:

Tetra Pak is the world's leading food processing and packaging solutions company. Working closely with our customers and suppliers, we provide safe, innovative and environmentally sound products that each day meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people in more than 170 countries around the world. With more than 23,000 employees based in over 80 countries, we believe in responsible industry leadership and a sustainable approach to business. 

Technical development in the packaging industry is intense today and everyone is trying to crack the code of sustainable packaging introducing new base materials (e.g. renewable, plant based, biodegradable, etc.), processes and strategies. Driving innovations that address environmental impacts and designing products with the environment in mind will deliver a new competitive edge that can’t be ignored. We have already seen multiple innovations in packaging over the last few years. After light weighting and recycling, the next stage of evolution and innovation is around raw material selection, with companies acknowledging our natural resource challenges and re-thinking what their packaging is made of. At the same time, new packages have to meet stakeholder demands and offer the good convenience with winning environmental arguments in an increasingly competitive business environment and circular economy context.  It also highlights how predominant the role of packaging is in the food and drink supply chains (beyond ensuring food contents are delivered safely to consumers, it helps reducing food waste). This session will focus on:

 

• Packaging trends and new sustainable material options
• Sustainable sourcing: expanding focus from the end of life of the package (reuse/recycling) to the beginning of a package’s life cycle and increasing use of renewable materials responsibly sourced 
• Understand the nature of the consumer knowledge (including gaps) surrounding sustainable packaging practices

Keywords: sustainable, environment, renewable