Tuesday the 27th of June saw Northampton’s Hilton Hotel host FFP’s Sustainability Day. A free event for guests, stakeholders and industry leaders to come together and share their knowledge. The theme for this year’s event focused on the entire lifecycle of sustainable packaging, with guest speakers providing pivotal insights at every stage. Covering key topics including challenges, opportunities, and what the future could look like for the packaging industry.

Guests and speakers at the FFP Sustainability Day event

Sustainability Day Recap

Beginning the morning with warm drinks and a warm welcome, our host, Thomas Schulz, Vice President of Group Marketing and Communications at Constantia Flexibles, opened this long-awaited event. Sharing his vision for sourcing sustainable packaging before handing over to his colleague, Martina Wagner.

Martina set the scene for our audience by providing an overview of the packaging marketplace as it stands, the challenges we face in the industry, and Constantia’s focus “design for recycling”.

Jonathan Moore is the Sector Specialist Packaging at WRAP and walked us through the food-grade challenges we’re facing for non-PET recycled polymers. Including designing effective barriers, meeting certification regulations and staying on top of ever-changing global development. However, we know challenges inspire innovation which our next speaker delved into a little deeper.

The Product Manager at Constantia Flexibles, Frank Eger, highlighted the importance of implementing sustainable solutions into the lifecycle of packaging. Providing realistic and exciting opportunities with alternative options such as Paper Packaging Solutions. Naturally, the idea of possibilities led to an animated panel discussion about the future of packaging.

Cristina Delgadinho, Global Product Manager at Constantia Flexibles, and Simon Fletcher, VP Sales, at Constanta FFP, shared Constantia’s case studies and how challenges in the development of mono polymer laminates have been overcome at Constantia and the vision for the future at Constantia Flexibles.

Rob Thompson of The Co-op followed with a deep insight into the Co-op’s own sustainable packaging strategy, addressing the highs, lows and continued developments. Rob provided a detailed view of how regulations, such as the Plastics Pact, have impacted retailers and how they are driving change at The Co-op.

Alice Harlock of OPRL, continued discussions around future hurdles such as mandatory labelling with EPR. As well as incorporating consumer insights about recycling costs, education and convenience.

Kathy Illingworth, Head of Sustainability Consulting and Policy at Ecoveritas, explained the importance of data analysis; offering her expert advice on how to make our own data work for our businesses. Using customer research, reporting and EPR legislation updates effectively and sustainably.

For our final topic, Johnathan Moore stepped up once again to summarise our Kerbside Waste Collection service and review the FlexCollect Project, highlighting the successes, learnings and next steps. Before Thomas Schulz wrapped up the event with a final panel discussion.

We were delighted to be joined by so many industry specialists and for the insights they shared from their respective fields. The day was packed full of great conversations, new partnerships and exciting ideas to continue our efforts of ensuring sustainability at every stage of the packaging journey.

Thank you to everyone who attended. We look forward to working with you all and coming together again at our next event.