Well known packaging industry leader Nerida Kelton was presented with the inaugural PKN Women in Packaging Hall of Fame Award in June. We take a closer look at her career and contribution.
PKN: Throughout your distinguished career in packaging, what are some key milestones or highlights that stand out to you as particularly significant or memorable?
Nerida: I have so many special and key moments across my time in the industry, so I will do my best to pick a few:
Women in Packaging
One of the first highlights was introducing the first-ever Women in Packaging Mentoring program for the industry thought the AIP. We then started working with PKN to create the Women in Packaging Forum each year. In 2023 I had an extremely poignant opportunity to moderate the first ever Women in Packaging Forum at Interpack – the largest packaging & processing exhibition in the world. And of course, I was honoured most recently to win win the inaugural PKN Women in Packaging Hall of Fame award.
Save Food Packaging and Food Waste
I was invited by the Federal Government to be the packaging representative on a 10-person working group to help develop the National Food Waste Strategy. Talk about imposter syndrome when I first walked into that first meeting. I was surrounded by esteemed members of the food industry, and I felt a little out of my league.
Also, about 8 years ago, the AIP was invited to be a part of the End Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre. We established an industry-led Save Food Packaging consortium, in partnership with RMIT, and created as global-first set of Save Food Packaging Guidelines, checklists, research and training course.
Australasian Packaging Innovation & Design (PIDA) Awards
The work that the AIP have put in to establishing a very successful and strong technical packaging awards program for the industry in Australia and New Zealand is a standout. The PIDA awards are also the exclusive entry point for Australia and New Zealand for the prestigious WorldStar Packaging Awards and we work very hard every year to guide the PIDA winners with their entries. We have maintained our position in the top three countries in the world for the last four years and this is something that we don’t take lightly.
Certified Packaging Professional designation
I have to say developing the Certified Packaging Professional program in Australasia is a milestone. The AIP was the first association in the world to take the CPP program that is run by the IoPP in the US and develop it for Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Since then, I have led the global CPP program roll out and we now have South Africa, Nigeria and Spain also rolling out the program.
Vice Presidency for World Packaging Organisation (WPO)
When I first started at the WPO, I joined the Sustainability working group. I had the opportunity to work with the WPO on developing the Save Food Packaging design special award that is a part of the WorldStar Packaging Awards. About four years ago the then VP recommended to the President that I take his role. My thoughts at the time were that many would expect the new VP to come from Europe and here I was, a woman from Australia.
Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide
When I started my first term as Vice President for Sustainability & Save Food, for the World Packaging Organisation (WPO) I was tasked with looking after and launching the Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide which was developed by the WPO, Circular Analytics, University of Applied Sciences and ECR Community. So far, we have translated the guide into 14x languages, with many more on the way. We now have 31x Waste Stream Mapping Tools from across the globe and we hope to have more shortly.
AIP Fellowship
Personally, my milestone was being recognised by the AIP with a Fellowship in 2023. Anyone that knows me will appreciate that I am rarely lost for words and the night of the announcement I was speechless and emotional. I came into this industry as a university degree level Public Relations & Communications specialist. My first AUSPACK was one where I felt so uncomfortable to step into a very male dominated industry and to be made to feel like you were standing on the periphery being judged for not being technical, nor an engineer. I do hope that others will see someone like me become an AIP Fellow and realise that you are the only one standing in your own way. Ignore the naysayers and keep striving for whatever it is you want to achieve.
PKN: As the VP of Sustainability & Save Food at WPO and the executive director of the Australian Institute of Packaging, how do you perceive the current global packaging landscape?
Whilst the common thread across all countries is a shift towards a more circular economy and the move to design out waste and pollution, every region and country naturally differs in approach. It is encouraging to see that more governments are establishing regulations, levies and pledges to achieve circularity, reduce problematic materials and unnecessary packaging and lower environmental impacts through circular and sustainable design.
The challenge that we face is that we don’t have harmonised standards. We do need to try and collaborate more and develop consistent global standards for design where possible. We encourage everyone to share their country reports twice a year in the WPO Sustainability working group so that we can learn from each other and finds out what works and what doesn’t and what we can apply to our own country or region.
PKN: Sustainable packaging has become a major focus in recent years. What strategies or initiatives do you believe are most effective in driving meaningful, widespread change towards more sustainable packaging practices?
Whilst a lot is happening in circular and sustainable design, a lot more needs to be done to realistically be able to meet packaging and waste targets globally, regionally and locally. The common themes look at designing out waste at the start, eliminating problematic materials, phasing out single use plastics, incorporating more recycled content into products, and ensuring that the materials and packaging that is put out into the market is in fact capable of being collected, sorted, recycled, reprocessed and put back into other solutions.
PKN: Could you share some examples of innovative sustainable packaging solutions or initiatives that you find inspiring or promising?
There are just so many examples now. I would encourage everyone to look at the PIDA award case studies that are available on the AIP website and the same for the newly launched case studies on the WPO website.
Balancing the need for packaging to protect products with the imperative to minimise environmental impact is a complex challenge. What approach do you advocate to industry?
Packaging must be fit-for-purpose and functional first and foremost. We need to ensure that we don’t have any unintended consequences when we design packaging, such as wasting food or wasting packaging materials. The optimum pack design needs to find that balance and this can be challenging for packaging technologists.
Collaboration across industries and stakeholders is often crucial for advancing sustainability goals in packaging, we need to look at how we foster collaboration and cooperation among different entities to achieve common objectives.
