With the 2025 National Packaging Waste Target presenting one of the largest challenges today, the packaging and processing industry is poised to be a leader in sustainability.
Sustainability will be a key focus on day one of the AUSPACK 2019 Business and Industry Conference, which is presenting the two-day inaugural conference as part of Packaging and Processing Week 2019.
Dr Michael Okoroafor, Vice President of Global Sustainability and Packaging Innovation at McCormick (USA), will give the conference’s opening keynote presentation – an industry outlook on key insights driving the future of packaging for FMCG.
Dr Okoroafor, who was inducted into the Packaging and Processing Hall of Fame at last year’s PACK EXPO International, is an innovation leader with more than 40 patents to his name. He’ll share his insights on using transformational packaging innovation and a re-aligned supply chain to drive FMCG industry growth. He’ll look at how sustainability needs will push the circular economy and shape innovations in the future for FMCG companies, giving some examples of successful innovations that are transforming not only the industry, but society as a whole.
Okoroafor will be followed by a panel of CEOs from leading Australian sustainability organisations talking about what’s good for the planet being good for business, and working through the opportunities surfacing from the 2025 National Packaging Waste Target.
The panel’s facilitator is Craig Reucassel, who many will know as the writer and presenter of ABC’s “War on Waste”, while his fellow panellists include Brooke Donnelly, CEO of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO); Steve Lapidge, CEO of the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre; and Paul Klymenko, CEO of Planet Ark.
It’s been said that the 2025 National Packaging Waste Target is giving industry one of the biggest challenges we’ve seen in modern times. However, it’s important to recognise that in every challenge there really is an opportunity, so this expert panel session will focus on the potential now in front of the packaging and processing industry to be a leader in sustainability. They’ll look at the role packaging has in minimising food waste, innovations as we both move away from single-use packaging and reduce food waste, plus the potential of the circular food economy. The implications for industry and for consumers of the 2025 National Packaging Waste Target will be an interesting discussion point for many too.
Collaborating with others gives businesses an economy of scale and broadens their available skill sets to find solutions that they most likely just would not find by working on their own.
The panel will talk about this, but because there are so many benefits around industry collaboration in achieving sustainability, it will be the sole focus of the keynote presentation following the panel discussion. This keynote after morning tea, kicks off stream one in the conference, processing and packaging. It will concentrate on the value of industry collaboration in finding sustainable solutions, looking at how industry can work together to initially create sustainable solutions, then overarchingly to create a sustainable industry.
Sustainability was so important to the packaging and processing industry, sustainability and innovation will be part of the discussion in the first session in stream two, business growth, a panel discussion about how e-commerce is shaking up the supply chain.