BACK TO BASICS – AND GRASPING THE FUTURE When, in March 2020, we last chatted to Smurfit Kappa about its sustainability strategies, perhaps neither the interviewer nor the interviewee fully appreciated quite how profoundly the pandemic would impact on everyone’s activities – nor how long it would last. Around the anniversary of the first European lockdowns Tim Sykes catches up with Arco Berkenbosch (VP Innovation & Development) to review how the market has changed since then and the progress made on the backdrop of Covid.
AS
Packaging Europe has reported extensively over the last two years, ‘Better Planet Packaging’ was introduced as an initiative to create a concrete agenda associated with innovation projects to develop paper-based packaging solutions that are designed to be recyclable and are recycled, and it has continued by supporting the culture of sustainability throughout Smurfit Kappa. Have the conditions of the pandemic slowed down the transformation envisaged by the corrugated packaging giant? “There are two sides to every coin,” Arco Berkenbosch observes. “We do miss physical meetings but the virtual world opens up lots of opportunities to collaborate with brands, customers and suppliers. For example, without the travel it’s much easier to set up a half-hour meeting. And in the past we were happy to have 500 participants at customer events, whereas recently we held a virtual Better Planet Packaging event and 2700 people turned up. Overall, the pandemic has been challenging but it hasn’t prevented Better Planet Packaging from having a lot of impact. We’ve already implemented over 140 solutions replacing unsustainable packaging.” Among the more interesting recent launches are new portfolios addressing sustainable packaging demands for e-commerce (the explosion of which we’ll discuss later). At the start of 2021 Smurfit Kappa introduced a range of single and multi-bottle formats for beverages. The business has also been investing heavily in bag-in-box – which Arco describes as “todays ideal sustainable e-commerce packaging format for liquids,” considering that, for instance, Amazon certification requires that a package must survive as many as 17 drops. Indeed, in April Smurfit Kappa unveiled a general Amazon Frustration Free Packaging certified three-litre Bag-in-Box for several SKU’s. A first for a generic packaging design, this pre-certification could be a game-changer for producers, who can avoid time-consuming testing in ISTA-certified laboratories by opting for an off-the-shelf product. In addition, a first high-speed packing line for TopClip can multipack toppers is being installed, and an equivalent solution for PET applications is in the pipeline. At a more fundamental level, Smurfit Kappa is continuing to put a lot of research into recyclable coatings, with a particular focus on moisture protection to extend the use of paper-based recyclable packaging.
Arco Berkenbosch
Considering the FMCG landscape overall, I wonder whether we can detect any subtle shifts in the sustainability priorities we’ve been following in recent years, particularly the pressure to embrace alternatives to single-use plastics. In Arco’s view, there has been a change but maybe not in the bigger picture. “Sustainability is for most of us a more mid-term challenge – you don’t care so much about it if your short-term challenge is to prevent your family from hunger,” he says. “This principle also applies during the pandemic, with a greater emphasis on food safety vs recyclability relative to before. Perhaps we’ve seen a bit more emphasis on the low-hanging fruit over the last year, with people for example more reluctant
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