Richard Akkermans is the European R&D Packaging Sustainability Manager at Mondelez International. He studied for his D.Phil (a.k.a. PhD) in Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford, UK and started his career at Mars UK in R&D in 1999. Armed with >25 years’ experience in leading cross-functional FMCG innovation teams, for the last 4 years he has led Mondelez’s packaging sustainability programme for Europe, focusing on Design for Recyclability, Virgin Plastic Reduction and collaboration to improve systems for the recycling of flexible plastic packaging. With this last aspect in mind, Mondelez are actively participating in HolyGrail 2030 – Circular Packaging and the Belgium market demonstration of intelligent sorting to improve the circularity of food-contact flexible polypropylene packaging ahead of the recycled content requirements of the PPWR in 2030.