WHAT DID THE SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS 2020 TELL US ABOUT GREEN INNOVATION? The judges’ verdicts are in! Over the following pages you can discover and hear from the winners of the eight Sustainability Awards categories. But the leading global sustainable packaging competition isn’t just about picking out winners: it’s intended to shine a broader floodlight on the scope and cutting edge of green innovation up and down the value chain and around the world. Tim Sykes reviews the 2020 competition and picks out five trends revealed by this snapshot of recent innovation. 1. A circular economy in single-use packaging remains the number one driver of R&D This year we saw a record 275 submissions to the Sustainability Awards. Once again, a large proportion of those entries were based around singleuse packaging that was designed for recycling and/or incorporating recycled materials. This year’s submissions underline the fact that mono-material films and pouches are maturing as a market and extending their reach into more challenging applications. Circular economy orientated innovation also dominated the list of finalists selected by our judging panel: the BASF/Borealis/Südpack pouch made from chemically recycled waste plastic waste; P&G’s all plastic aerosol and Bericap’s silicon-free valve; Ecover’s and Volvic’s entries driving the use of PCR; entries focusing on recyclable white pigment and decoloration; and of course Ardagh’s exciting innovation in closing the loop for glass recycling.
2. E-commerce Direct to consumer delivery is a trend that will grow and grow, and which explodes established paradigms about resource efficiency and product protection. It’s unsurprising that this year’s competition saw growing numbers of entries aimed at reducing the environmental impact of such packaging, from recyclable mailers and waterless refill systems to the Slimbox perfectly fitting solution for optimized boxing of e-commerce packages – a finalist in the machinery category. The home delivery trend has accelerated under the conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic, and I anticipate this will channel even more R&D into packaging for e-tailers. Hopefully some exciting ideas to look forward to in the 2021 edition.
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3. Reuse Reusable packaging has gone mainstream, and this is reflected in both the number of entries to this year’s competition, and their prominence among the finalists. It’s notable that the finalist entries represent quite a spectrum of reuse models: refill at home (Ecover); deposit-return systems (Coca-Cola Brasil’s universal PET bottle and TerraCycle’s Loop concept); and refill in the store (Beiersdorf’s NIVEA refill station and MIWA’s dispenser system).
4. The market responds to demand for renewable alternatives Demand for renewable and recyclable materials is strong, and with plastic under media and political fire, we are living through something of a golden age in innovation in paper-based packaging. Syntegon took the Sustainability Award in the ‘Machinery’ category for its PaperForming technology to produce moulded pods, while Maison Ruinart won in ‘Resource Efficiency’ with its ingenious fibre-based ‘second skin’ champagne case, and Frugalpac’s recycled coffee cup was a very worthy finalist. Meanwhile, the ‘Bio-Based’ category supplied the overall winner of the Sustainability Awards 2020: a game-changing development that’s come as the culmination of decades of research.
5. The cutting edge is sharper than ever A new ‘Pre-Commercialized Innovation’ category was introduced this year so that judges were no longer compelled to compare innovations that have been tested by the marketplace with those that look promising in the laboratory. The resulting avalanche of entries provided a thrilling glimpse at the technologies, processes and materials of tomorrow. Our judges shared the excitement. Entries to this category attracted the highest average scoring across the whole competition. n
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