Press Release: 13th May 2011
CEOs Facing up to Littering, Extended Producer Responsibility
Top convenience packaging executives from Europe and North Ameria meet in Barcelona, Spain
Sixty CEOs and other top executives from some of Europe and North America's leading food and beverage convenience and service packaging companies pledged to coordinate more closely in the future to tackle some key common challenges for the industry. Top of the list is the issue of littering, thrown into relief by the highly visible and environmentally detrimental waste accumulating in the world's seas and oceans. Brussels regulators have announced that they will come forward with measures to tackle the issue, while many US states are also active.
“The solution is to change the attitudes and behaviour of people who deliberately or carelessly dispose of waste in town and countryside and to improve waste collection and management everywhere,” said Daniele Simonazzi, owner of Italian cup producer FLO Spa and current president of Pack2Go Europe, co-organiser of the summit event. “Putting in place legislation that discriminates against, for example, certain types of packaging is going to displace the problem, not solve it.”
The top executives from companies like Europe’s deSter, Nupik, Seda and Solo Europe and North America’s Cascades, Fabri-Kal, Georgia Pacific, International Paper, and Pactiv, were participating in the sixth joint summit in ten years. The event was organised by Pack2Go Europe, Europe’s convenience food and beverage packaging association, and North America’s Foodservice Packaging Institute. Major material suppliers to the industry like Total Petrochemicals, Stora Enso, INEOS Styrenics and The Dow Chemical Company also took part.
Another major challenge for the future is extended producer responsibility. While Europeans are familiar with this since the advent of the 1994 European packaging directive, this is a relatively new regulatory phenomenon in North America. While Europe’s rules have been centralised and largely harmonised by Brussels, the USA is seeing a growing number of uncoordinated local and state initiatives. Steve Claus of Belgium’s Fost Plus green dot scheme, told the CEOs that the lesson from Europe was that effectiveness and cost efficiency stem from industry and government working together. Above all, separate collection, sorting and recycling should be introduced in a step-by-step manner.
Food service packaging companies operating in Europe are concerned that they are now being targeted directly to finance waste management of service packaging, whereas the EU rules usually put the emphasis on packer-fillers (like food and beverage companies) to carry – and pass on – the cost of extended producer responsibility for all other types of consumer packaging. Food service packaging manufacturers anticipate difficulty in passing on these costs through the value chain.
Executives also agreed that a clear, simple and unique set of definitions and measurements for sustainability was essential to work in a focused way towards the environmental goals set out by governments in the EU and North America.
“Governments, manufacturers, brand owners, NGOs and consumers all have their own definition of sustainability and their own ways to measure it. Each of these players can contribute in its own way towards a sustainable world, but we all need to speak the same language to do so,” argued Tony Waters, CEO of Solo Cup Europe. “There is a need to create a coherent network of physical infrastructure and education, so that efforts can be channelled in the right direction” he added.
Speaking at the CEO summit, Xavier Sala-i-Martin, world-renowned advisor to the World Economic Forum, Davos, argued that Europe’s future will look grim compared to fast-growing Asian economies unless European business leaders find effective ways to promote a culture based on innovation. This advice is particularly relevant for foodservice packaging businesses, who are investing capital and human resources to develop innovative packaging products which are able to satisfy today’s more and more challenging requirements. Sala-i-Martin is professor of Economics at New York’s Columbia University.
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For more information, please contact:
pack2go europe
europe’s convenience food packaging association
tel: +32/ 2 - 286.94.96
fax: +32/ 2 - 286.94.95
e-mail: ebates@eamonnbates.com
