Leading voices contextualize the discussions of the next two days by assessing progress in packaging sustainability, our fundamental business, regulatory and innovation challenges, and how they interconnect.

Will brands opt for greener packaging when consumer budgets are under pressure, and what’s the outlook for infrastructure investment when interest rates are rocketing? Industry is challenged with accelerating progress on environmental impacts at a time when some brands have acknowledged that they cannot meet their 2025 goals. In the face of economic headwinds, systemic barriers and preoccupation in some sectors with seismic mergers, we explore business perspectives on how to maintain and build momentum. 

The elephant in the room. Looming reporting requirements – associated with new regulation, EU taxonomy, and SBTI – present a severe headache for business. In this session, we explain how data hygiene, harmonized standards, and common data sets are crucial to meeting obligations – and cleaning up your internal mess.

This is a pivotal year. In Europe, questions surround how PPWR will unfold as we await the impact of elections in addition to a tsunami of secondary legislation that threatens to fragment regulatory demands and damage competitiveness. On the Strategy Stage we bring together business and regulators, including Nestlé’s Jodie Roussell, the European Commission’s Mattia Pellegrini and EUROPEN’s Francesca Stevens, to explore the challenges raised by regulation, from mandatory targets to reporting requirements, to identify the gaps, and define how we can respond. But we also propose viewing 2024 as an opportunity: if we can lay the strategic foundations for an ambitious path to meet science-based environmental targets, we have a chance to set the course for a decade of growth.

The gear-shift from innovation to bringing change at scale is crucial to achieving our sustainability goals and meeting our regulatory obligations. This applies especially to the context of reusable packaging, where we have seen many impressive pilot schemes, but volumes lag way behind the levels necessary to eliminate plastic waste. The Sustainable Packaging Summit will address this challenge with a strategic panel discussion exploring how we can create the conditions in which consortiums driving reuse can flourish. Featuring Jolanda de Rooij (Unilever), Emmanuelle Bautista (CITEO), Amy Larkin (PR3), Feng Wang (UN Environment Programme) and Mirjam Karmiggelt (GS1), we assess the respective roles that can be played by governance, international standards and EPR – as well as learnings from value chain collaborators on the keys to growth.

Paper-based and bio-based alternatives are popular with consumers. We explore the environmental considerations around switching to a renewable packaging material, and the barriers and opportunities confronting the renewable-based businesses.

On the backdrop of INC-5, the latest instalment of negotiations in the UN Plastics Treaty, we explore not just the global regulatory levers, but the practical actions that stakeholders can collectively take to help develop supply chains and markets for circular plastics.

Brands and retailers are under pressure to meet mandatory targets for recycled content in packaging materials – while also complying with regulation governing contact-sensitive applications. There’s an urgent need for pre-competitive alignment to identify and nurture scalable solutions. Holly Nelson (Unilever), Hannah Drew (Aldi Sud), Alexander-Christian Root (PreZero) and Feliks Bezati (Mars) search for pathways to this goal.

As the cross-value chain project HolyGrail 2.0 approaches its final stages of R&D testing, some of the stakeholders take a look at the achievements, and unveil the exciting initiatives and opportunities ahead.