AIP 2023 AUSTRALIAN PACKAGING CONFRENCE

Circular economies and sustainable packaging high on the AIP agenda

Under the theme of ‘2025 and beyond’, the AIP 2023 Australasian Packaging Conference focused on the key trends impacting the local packaging industry

-By Conal O’Neill in Melbourne

The 2023 Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) Australasian Packaging Conference was recently held at the Crown Promenade in Melbourne under the theme of ‘2025 and beyond’.

The conference had a strong focus on sustainability, circular economic principles, and the environmental impact of packaging technology, particularly in relation to the food and beverage and pharmaceutical industries.

Digitalisation and extended producer responsibility

The first keynote session featured presentations from AIP executive director and World Packaging Organisation vice- president of sustainability and save food Nerida Kelton, World Packaging Organisation president Professor Pierre Pienaar and Procter & Gamble technical director Gian De Belder.

Kelton highlighted the importance of viewing sustainability in the packaging industry through the lens of food waste, saying that the two issues were inextricably linked.

Addressing the challenges of sustainability “with a scientific balanced argument about packaging waste, sustainable packaging and food waste” is key to understanding and addressing environmental issues in the packaging and the food and beverage sectors, Kelton noted.

Pact Group’s Andrew Smith, AIP’s Ralph Moyle, Asahi’s Kirsten Sturzaker, Coca Cola Europacific Partners’ Sarah Cook and Cleanaway’s Andrej Rakow

Professor Pienaar opened the conference with an address focussed on the potential of extended producer responsibility (EPR), saying that it is “the way of the future” and that “a producer (taking) responsibility for that which they are producing” is “the solution to our issues”.

While commenting on food waste issues, Pienaar also noted that $14 billion worth of pharmaceuticals are destroyed globally each year because of packaging and supply chain issues.

De Belder gave a pre-recorded address discussing his work in research and development of intelligent packaging systems for the Holy Grail 2.0 initiative. Using digital watermarks to enable efficient sorting of recycling material, Holy Grail 2.0 aims to eliminate plastic waste.

“A transformational change of the waste industry (through digitalisation) is truly required,” De Belder said, adding that the “relatively high cost” of introducing digital watermarks could be offset by introducing them at the same time as other artwork change initiatives.

Circular economies as the way of the future

Session two saw keynote addresses from some of the big players in the industry. Mars Food Australia general manager Bill Heague, Woolworths Food Company head of packaging Bryan McKay and Nestlé Australia head of packaging Karunia Adhiputra all spoke about the need for circular economies for environmental and financial reasons as well as consumer demand for more sustainable practices in the packaging industry.

Heague spoke of the need for “circular solutions” and also tied the issue of packaging waste to food waste, noting that 7.6 million tonnes of food are wasted each year in Australia, and that reducing food waste “actually improved the economic returns that we’re getting”.

Woolworths Food Company head of packaging Bryan McKay

Describing the move towards sustainable and circular economic practices as “inevitable”, Heague also emphasised that producers such as Mars Food “will not compromise on quality”.

Speaking of the drivers behind the push to sustainability in the packaging industry, McKay noted that while governments, consumers and “the planet” were all demanding recyclable packaging, it would all mean nothing unless that packaging was reused into packaging again, and the framework to enable this is vital. Adhiputra also spoke of the importance of using recycled content back into packaging and of Nestlé’s “paperisation” of its chocolate packaging. Nestlé is looking at “long-term solutions for a circular economy” from a “waste hierarchy perspective”, Adhiputra said.

This approach put the focus on reduction of packaging, with Adhiputra explaining that the company used on-label messaging to explain to consumers that while the packaging size of a particular product may decrease, the contents remained the same.

Plastic as a sustainable material

A panel discussion comprised of Planet Ark CEO Rebecca Gilling, Australian Beverages Council CEO Geoff Parker, National Retail Association CEO Greg Griffith and Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) CEO Chris Foley delved further into the topic of circularity.

Gilling spoke out against the “increasing demonisation of plastics”, noting that plastic packaging is often a safer option for food products, and the recyclability and reuse of plastic materials was key to creating complex circular systems that used, and reused the most appropriate materials for products.

Griffith and Foley both spoke of the role of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and the concerns of the sector in the cost implications of implementing circular economic changes.

Planet Ark’s Rebecca Gilling, Australian Beverages Council’s Geoff Parker, National Retail Association’s Greg Griffith and APCO’s Chris Foley

They said while bigger retailers had the structure to plan changes and absorb costs for a longer-term payoff, SMEs were not in a position to do this, but they played an important role in implementing change and educating consumers.

Speaking to the cost benefits of reuse, Foley also claimed that the “payback was there, both environmental and financial” for retailers who made the effort to implement reuse systems in their businesses, citing Kmart’s reuse of between 300 and 400 million coat hangers per year.

The panel also spoke in depth about the “patchwork quilt” of container deposit schemes in Australia, with Parker noting that addressing the disharmony in the different schemes in different states was one of the roles of the Australian Beverage Council. Parker also said that Europe was looking to Australia for guidance on this particular issue.

Foley told the audience that “change is coming and now is the time to start taking responsibility”.

A focus on food waste

Keynote session four of the 2023 AIP Conference was opened with a video address from Dr Liz Goodwin, director of food loss and waste for the World Resources Institute (WRI).

Goodwin spoke in depth about global food waste issues, stating that “a third of all food produced globally by weight is lost always between farm and fork”, amounting to approximately a trillion dollars of loss through the food supply chain.

Planet Ark’s Nicole Garofano, Planet Ark’s Paul Klymenko, Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence’s John Gertsakis and Nextek Asia Pacific’s Kelvin Davies

Goodwin noted that the solutions, such as improved packaging, are known, but that a “whole of systems” approach was needed to effectively address the massive scale of global food loss, as well as the eight per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions caused by food loss.

Brianna Casey, CEO of Foodbank Australia spoke to Australian food security issues, noting that the Australian food system produces enough food to “feed the population three times over” and that there is often “no economic imperative” for producers to donate food and that it can be “easier and probably cheaper to dump it than to donate it”.

Because of transport and other costs along the supply chain, food that is unsaleable due to issues such as damaged packaging ends up in landfill rather than feeding people.

Once again, commenting on the inextricable links between food waste and packaging design, Coles Group general manager of sustainability Brooke Donnelly offered some insights from the perspective of the big retailers.

Brianna Casey, CEO of Foodbank Australia

Donnelly said we “cannot feed the [eight billion people] on the planet effectively without plastic packaging” and also spoke to the company’s impact potential due to its “massive supply chain” and influence across “suppliers… government, community [groups] and NGOs”.

According to Donnelly, the Coles Group aimed to be champions of “sustainable plastic packaging” and its focus was on not only the redesign of the packaging of its Coles brand product range by “removing non-recyclable components” but also “redesigning the way customers engage with a product”.

Donnelly explained that offering incentives such as even “perceived small financial benefits” could alter consumer behaviour.

Women in packaging

A panel discussion on day two of the conference put the spotlight on women in the packaging industry. Three packaging professionals were given the opportunity to share their stories as immigrant women working in packaging design.

Production Packaging Innovation structural packaging designer Azadeh Yousefi, Sustainability for Kids founder Anhely Millán and Mondelēz International packaging technologist Maria Becerril Roman all spoke of the barriers they have faced as women in packaging and as immigrants in Australia.

Sustainability for Kids’ Anhely Millán, Mondelēz International’s Maria Becerril Roman and Production Packaging Innovation’s Azadeh Yousefi

While optimistic about the prospects of developing a more sustainable culture around packaging and consumer attitudes towards recycling, Millán stated that “if we don’t act now, the future will look terrible”. The key to finding and implementing solutions was collaboration between not only industry, government and academia, but primary and secondary schools as well, Millán said.

Yousefi was also optimistic but said that collaboration, education and incentives were “not enough” and that consumers needed to develop a better understanding of why sustainability was important. Great progress had been made, Roman said, through initiatives such as the Australasian Recycling Label Program (ARL) and even the controversial REDCycle soft plastics program in terms of educating consumers, but more needs to be done.

Circular economy and design

Circular economy and design was the topic for a panel discussion moderated by Planet Ark head of circular economy development Nicole Garofano. The panel featured input from Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence director John Gertsakis, Planet Ark chief sustainability advisor Paul Klymenko and Nextek Asia Pacific project manager Kelvin Davies.

Garofano encouraged the audience to place a “higher value on materials” and to think of circular economies as “far more than recycling”. The “ladder of circularity”, Garofano said placed a relatively low importance on recycling, and the highest value on refusal of unnecessary packaging or non-essential products.

Mars Food Australia general manager Bill Heague

The panel also discussed the importance of product stewardship as a tool for implementing circular economies, with Klymenko commenting that it was in producers’ best interests to “take the leadership” in the area and avoid inevitable “mandatory systems” that may be less favourable to business interests.

Garofano added that making progress was dependent on “brand owners coming together”, saying “together we can do this better… and it doesn’t have to start with a formal stewardship scheme implemented by government”.

Gertsakis agreed, adding that “enthusiastic collaboration rather than reluctant participation” and having “senior people involved from the outset” was important to expediting decision making processes around implementing stewardship schemes and delivering “genuine brand responsibility”.

Speaking to the reluctance of some brand owners to embrace circular economic principles, Garofano also said “people think that the circular economy… is another thing we’ve got to add on to (sustainability targets), but it’s actually a really important tool to achieve (these goals)”.

Nestlé Australia head of packaging Karunia Adhiputra

Garofano and Klymenko also encouraged brand owners to utilise the Australian Circular Economy Hub, a Planet Ark initiative, as a “national reference platform for circular economy, knowledge and collaboration in Australia”.

As with many of the speakers at the conference the panel also drew attention to the overarching issue of food waste, with Klymenko commenting that “packaging and plastics is quite a small part of the waste supply chain. One of the biggest contributions anyone… can make is [to discuss and address] food waste... food has so much embodied carbon and energy in it and then for want of planning or forethought, it gets wasted”.

Davies gave some perspective on the technical challenges of developing packaging from recycled polypropylene as well as consumer perceptions. “When you put them past consumers, they can’t pick the difference,” he said.

Circular Plastics Australia and collaboration

The final panel discussion for the conference featured a conversation between the partners in the Circular Plastics Australia initiative. Pact Group sustainability executive general manager Andrew Smith presented on the program and moderated the discussion with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners chief procurement and sustainability officer Sarah Cook, Cleanaway head of M&A Andrej Rakow and Asahi sustainability group head Kirsten Sturzaker.

The conversation focussed on the impact potential of Circular Plastic Australia’s new recycling plant as well as the power of collaborative relationships between competitive brands.

“We are talking about building a new industry,” Smith said, referring to the group’s joint venture and facility in Albury that will recycle up to 20,000 tons of PET bottles. “You can’t do this on your own. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. Whether you’re at the big end of town or the small.”

Cook noted that “we absolutely compete in store” but that the opportunity to collaborate provided value for the industry at large and that while the existing infrastructure was “inefficient” as the industry was ambitious about what could be achieved in terms of sustainability goals and business outcomes.

Sturzaker added that while the recycled PET products would come at a cost premium it made long-term commercial sense to invest in “building a local circular economy”.

Providing some perspective from the resource management sector, Rakow commented on the need for “harmonisation” of the materials recovery facilities (MRFs) across the hundreds of LGAs in Australia, and that the efficiency of kerbside collection systems still needed to be addressed.