At the sold-out PKN Women in Packaging event held in Melbourne last Thursday, women who are walking the talk in sustainable packaging shared their stories and voiced their views to a receptive audience.
Welcoming delegates to the bright, open space that is the Conversation Quarter at State Library Victoria, PKN publisher Lindy Hughson drove home the value of nurturing a solid, supportive, inclusive community for women in packaging, and noted that the PKN Women in Packaging event is growing from strength to strength with strong industry support.
The afternoon kicked off with keynote speaker, behavioural science strategist Sonia Friedrich, looking at the ways to change consumer behaviour, and providing insight into the latest in research design to tap into the consumer unconscious response. She outlined the predictable way the human brain responds and makes decisions, and what that means for brands as well as the impacts on sustainability. Her discussion looked at human behaviour, how the unconscious can hinder rather than help, the perception of our present versus future selves, the need for immediate gratification, the reward and delay reward, and how loss aversion influences choice.
Friedrich gave examples of preventing cognitive overload, showing how succinct information, words and visuals, as well as choice architecture can influence a shift in behaviour change. She also highlighted how sustainable packaging messaging could be working better, suggesting that too much information can have a negative influence on consumer selecting the product.
“We all know the power of words, but are we testing the power on pack,” she said.
In a Q&A session moderated by PKN publisher Lindy Hughson, Julia Kay, co-founder & co-CEO Great Wrap and Joanne Howarth, CEO and founder, Planet Protector Packaging spoke on the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and gave the audience insights into plans for growth and expansion of their respective businesses.
Kay discussed how the Great Wrap business was born, sharing her experience of how the potato processing waste stretch wrap was developed with Monash University three years ago, funding received, pointing out the company’s recent move into a 12,000 sqm facility in Tullamarine.
Howarth discussed the path that took her to found and develop Planet Protector Packaging, whose mission is to eliminate polystyrene from cold supply chains, particularly those used to transport pharmaceuticals, food, and seafood, with the company's Woolpack solution.
Planet Protector Packaging
She also took the opportunity to note that just last week the company had marked the milestone of preventing 10 million polystyrene shippers from landfill, which is unfortunately still the destination for polystyrene product shippers in this country.
Each speaker talked about the challenges faced as a start-up, Kay pointing out how a pilot program, social and mass media coverage led to the sale of around $30 000 worth of stock, and investors reached out and things snowballed from there, and Howarth discussing how the company had won a $5 million grant to establish modern wool processing facility in Geelong, to vertically integrate the production of its disruptive Woolpack products.
Both Kay and Howarth said that there had been higher levels of interest in their products overseas than locally, with Kay saying that the US "made things happen" and Howarth, saying she was overwhelmed by the opportunities in India.
Kay believes that consistency is important on the path to become a champion of change, while Howarth said leadership skills and collective alignment were vital, along with passion and the way ability to tell a story that resonates.
Next on the podium was Cath Cornaggia, commercial director, Labels & Packaging Materials ANZ, Avery Dennison, a passionate advocate for empowering girls and women through education to building smarter, stronger, more resilient communities that can create lasting change.
In her presentation, Cornaggia discussed the importance of educating girls, which she said can help develop better solutions to deal with food and water scarcity. Educating girls in STEM subjects will provide them with skills in negotiating, communicating and problem solving, which will in turn equip them to lead the world's transition to a more sustainable circular and low carbon economy. She also spoke of the importance of closing the pay gap, and the merits of mentoring girls.
In her workplace, through the Avery Dennison Foundation, Cornaggia says she and her team are walking the talk through advancing the causes of education, sustainability and women's empowerment when it comes to the employee work community. Cornaggia is an executive sponsor of women's empowerment ERG work, which hold around 100 volunteering events each year in Asia Pacific with participation for more than 1400 people.
Sally Carter, head of Procurement, Brookfarm and Jessica Ansell, marketing manager OF Packaging unpacked the story behind Brookfarm’s adoption of the award-winning Roll ‘n Recycle mono-material pouch developed by OF Packaging, demonstrating how close collaboration played an important role in bringing this development to commercial fruition.
Carter kicked off by discussing the path which led to the collaboration between Brookfarm and OF Packaging, to launch the world-first kerbside recyclable soft plastic pouch, which turns 2D packaging into a 3D cylindrical shape, allowing it to be sorted correctly at the recycling facility.
Brookfarm worked with OF Packaging for over two years and was the first business to trial the Roll ‘n Recycle mono-material pouch innovation.
Ansell then provided an overview of OF Packaging and its projects, before Carter went on to outline the challenges of moving to the mono-material pouch innovation.
A key challenge related to the need to retain high barrier properties and a 12-month shelf life, especially given the high-fat-content macadamia oil as an ingredient.
A further challenge, said Carter, was the transition from material that's designed for beautiful print finish to the new monomer substrate that produces a different printed result but she admitted happily that the end product is “outstanding”.
Educating consumers that the Roll ‘n Recycle pouches were kerbside recyclable was yet another challenge, as pointed out by Ansell, who said there was a misconception about plastics among consumers.
This has been addressed by Brookfarm on their website, which provides step-by-step instructions on how to roll the pouches for recycling. A condensed version of the same information is presented on the peel-back label on pack that is used to fix the rolled pouch into place.
Carter said that extensive trials were undertaken before the product was taken to market, explaining that a single variant was selected to start with. Everything passed the trials, and the first kerbside recyclable pouch was launched towards the end of 2020.
Ansell elaborated on the trials done by OF Packaging with different sized pouches, confirming that the company is about to undertake further trails and has other customers on board to trial the program.
“There is great potential for kerbside recyclable soft plastics globally, whether it's a Roll ‘n Recycle format or another option, it's just all about trying to get soft plastics recycled any way that we can. We're quite happy with the results we've had and the recognition that we've received,” she said.
Carter confirmed that Brookfarm’s entire range (providing it meets the pouch size requirement) will be launched as the Roll ’n Recycle with roll out starting in February.
The afternoon ended with a panel discussion from Women Walking the Talk, who take an active involvement in industry to drive sustainable change. The panel was ably moderated by Bindu Panicker, head of Communications at tna Solutions.
Panellists included: Zaidee Jackson, national BDM – Sustainable Packaging, Ball & Doggett; Nerida Kelton, executive director, Australian Institute of Packaging; and Sally Williams, sustainability advocate, Martogg Group. The trio shared some of the highlights of the work they are currently doing to advance the sustainable packaging cause.
Jackson spoke of the importance of the supplier brand-owner relationship, when it comes to driving sustainable change via better packaging choices. To this end, she has initiated an exciting project, the soon-to-launch ecoporium by Ball & Doggett. Jackson said the platform has been developed to promote dialogue on sustainable packaging and to provide brand owners with access to important information on products and on sustainable packaging more broadly. The platform includes a podcast, already launched, in which she interviews industry leaders, including both Kelton and Williams.
Kelton, who is active in many capacities in the packaging industry, locally and globally, shared an update on the work she is involved with to advance the fight against food waste. She also spoke about the AIP’s Packaging Innovation and Design Awards, noting that Australia New Zealand region is punching well above its weight on the global stage when it comes to packaging innovation. An avid educator as well, Kelton took the opportunity to encourage the audience to nominate packaging professionals working on their teams for some of the numerous scholarship awards granted via the AIP and other supporting associations to advance the education and skills level in our industry.
Sally Williams shared her story on why she transitioned away from her 25 year TV career on Brand Power (the branded advertising concept representing leading FMCG brands) to focus on the sustainability sector. She said she got to a point where she could not in good conscience be promoting brands when she knew their product and packaging was not sustainable. She now works in the B2B and B2C sector to support brands and businesses help market their planet-friendly products and services directly to the end user consumer. Working for packaging recycled materials supplied Martogg, she too has developed a video and podcast platform. She explained how her goal is to help industry and consumers make better, more sustainable choices.
Judging by attendee feedback, and confirmed by social media posts, the event was a resounding success. In closing the proceedings, Lindy Hughson reiterated her thanks to the sponsors, the speakers, and the audience, all of whom she said had played a huge part in the success of the event.
PKN Women in Packaging 2022 Partners:
Platinum: tna solutions
Gold: Ball & Doggett
Silver: Close the Loop Group; InnovateLearn; Tetra Pak
Bronze: Caps & Closures; Impact International, Positiv, Result Group, Source Certain, Trimatt and Zipform Packaging.
Association Partner: Australian Institute of Packaging
The full report will be featured in the PKN Packaging News November/December issue.
