Sustainable Packaging
Industry Experts discuss all the new materials and ways that packaging can be more sustainable and how we can do our parts to help recycle and reuse. Sustainable Packaging is and will continue to affect us all in our daily lives. We have lots of fun and get down to the real data of what's working to help our planet!
Sustainable Packaging
Dell Is a Sustainability Leader / Oliver Campbell
https://www.dell.com/en-us
https://www.nextwaveplastics.org/
Dell is and has been a real leader in the push for sustainable packaging for years.
Oliver Campbell is a Director and Distinguished Engineer for Dell and his insights make this episode really interesting.
Why is corrugated made out of trees?
What is the future of bamboo as an alternative fiber?
Can mushroom packaging scale?
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/packaging-today-show/id1656906367
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Packaging Today Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/6dksVwqEFVDWdggd27fyFF?si=e924995740f94e19
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/
I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.
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Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is Mr. Oliver Campbell, who is the director and a distinguished engineer at Dell.
Oliver Campbell:How are you, sir? I'm great, Corey. Glad to be here and share this discussion with your audience.
Cory Connors:I'm excited to interview you. I've been a big fan of Dell. I have a Dell laptop and what you have been doing for many years in sustainability in your packaging and in more, but I'm excited to learn about you first, and then we'll get into what your company's doing. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and where you
Oliver Campbell:came from? Sure can, but first I just want to say thank you for buying Dell. That means a lot to us. Of course. We appreciate our customers. When you ask about background, it really starts what's a formative experience and what helped lead you to where you are today. And I would say for me, that was really growing up in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. I grew up in a very rural area, and my father was actually an engineering professor at Cornell University, which was a big influence, and my father also believed he grew up. So. On a farm, we're like probably seventh generation farmers but we have a blueberry farm. I grew up working on local dairy farms in the area as well. And I mentioned that because it really connected me, I think, to the natural world. When we talk sustainability. I do have very deep connection there. Although, as a teenager growing up in New York, I have to say, I did not appreciate it. At the time, as most teenagers. Different focus. Right? Different focus. Different focus. And I attended Cornell University. I have a bachelor's, master's degree in engineering. Primarily studied agricultural and biological engineering as well as mechanical engineering with, an area in composite materials. Wow. As well. Which would later I think as we get into the interview come into, play. And so these things, I think remained latent, certainly in, in packaging and sustainability for a long time, but they, were always there. Much of my background, certainly at Cornell, was mathematical based and, I mention that because it really taught me the ability, how do you take abstract concepts and ideas, which is really mathematics, and I am not a mathematician by any stretch. How do you take those, ideas and... Turn them into applications, real solutions. That's the business I'm in and that foundation was laid in that educational experience. And as far as a work background. My first job out of college was with Ford Motor Company in Detroit, as an engine development. Working on those problems. And my girlfriend at the time who I met in grad school at Cornell, she was from Austin, she was in Austin. And it was this like Austin, Detroit. I'm like 24 years old. Yeah. Great, food, better weather. I like Detroit, still have a lot of friends there. Tremendous experience. When I came to Austin. Various roles in high tech companies aerospace worked on countermeasures for aircraft missiles spent some time working actually with the governor's office. This came back into automotive emission testing and some of that engine development work, both for Ann Richards and George Bush, who's later president, which I think proved I can work with almost anybody. Having worked both sides of the aisles basically on vehicle emission testing, which was sustainability, and it really got some great experience around legislative making what goes into that working with US EPA and others, which that background and exposure I think really helped us later on with some of the innovations we had in Dell. Did some work in semiconductor then found my way to Dell. I've been here now almost 25 years long, a long time I've had three separate roles here started out in what we called operational strategy, which was, we were developing simulation models and business cases on where to put factories, merge centers, how to invest in increasing the throughput in factories, this type of thing. And in that experience, I'm so happy I had it. I don't know if it could have really occurred anywhere other than Dell, but it really laid this foundation end to end supply chain in packaging. If you really think about it is a reflection, a physical reflection of what the supply chain looks like. And my, second job here was actually running some of the facilities. We put in from our business cases. So the, saying about eat, what is it? Eating your own dog food? I got to do that. And it's, a left brain, right brain type of thing, phenomenal experience, and I was then later asked to lead the packaging engineering team. And I turned it down the first time it was offered to me is like why would I, do that? And we're in a tech company. And I was offered the job again a year later, and I rethought it. And sustainability was really starting to become a thing. This was probably around 2008. And that had appealed to me, given my background. The experience we had in doing business cases on basically supply chain. And also the factory work I did really got me thinking that said, Hey if we influence the size of the box, I can influence what the supply chain looks like. And that really held the deep fascination for me. So these two things really resonated with me. And, I went into packaging, I had. I had, I don't know if you, I know this is a packaging program. I had zero packaging experience, but I had a really good engineering background. Right. And I leaned into that. And I think it was an advantage for me being an outsider in the industry. It gave me the freedom really to ask a lot of questions. It's like, why is Corrigan made from trees? Right. That's a really good question. And, we answered that question a little later on, but that's a bit about my background in, in how I got to where I was. I'm not sure I would have had it any other way, honestly. That's excellent.
Cory Connors:And, you're exactly right. We, need to work with the government. We need to figure out how these different extended producer responsibility laws will, work with companies and rather than... Be a negative force. It can be such a positive thing to indicate the right kinds of materials that will work for a more sustainable future, but let's talk about Dell Dell has been an incredible innovator. I remember hearing one of your coworkers speak at waste expo, like four years ago. I don't re I don't remember his name. He was on a panel and he talked about. Some of the things that Dell was doing at the time. Incredibly impressive. Can you tell us some of the programs that you've been really excited about there at Dell that have been neat innovations?
Oliver Campbell:I think our programs and a lot of credit really goes To Michael Dell his, name's on the side of every box. He's, very interested in sustainability. And when I first came into this role, there, there was a lot on social media. Why are we shipping tiny things like memory stick and a big giant box, right? Things like that. And, we started a program called the, three C's and it stood for cube content and curb and it was really packaging's version of reduce, reuse, recycle. And so cube, let's make the box smaller. Content, let's use more recycled content. And, the third one, I think, was really the, interesting thing being the direct relationship Dell has with its customers was powerful. And so we, actually went and spoke with individual consumers. Large corporate buyers, education, et cetera. And, we got a very interesting theme on this that really cut across to all of them and people said, Hey, they didn't want to feel guilty when they had to dispose of their packaging. Right. They want to be able to put it in, a recycle bin. And, this was really a fascinating what I would say discovery or revelation to us. Because it really set the way for Where we thought the trend on packaging would, go, we wanted to be at the front of that and then that type of leadership position. And so we, started this three C's program, Michael Dell. It was a really short pitch, literally maybe five minutes. He just said, go. And we haven't looked back since. And, when we launched it, it was the classic. Okay. What do we do now? Right. Type of thing. The. And, as we were, we're thinking about materials because we were really trying to replace single use plastics. We used a lot of EPE styrofoam materials like that. And the question came up what's the world's fastest growing plant? And, the answer, land based I hope people is, bamboo. We know seaweed grows very fast. That's in the ocean. That's a separate category. And so we thought man, we can like steal an idea from agriculture. And this goes back to background and others had tried fiber based packaging, protective packaging, particularly the cushions is really what we're focused on is cushioning. In the past and it failed and bamboo really was a very, good choice for because the tensile strength, the long fiber length primarily. Compensate it for a lack of knowledge in all these other areas. And we, got it to work and it worked quite well. We got it in a cost parity. At the time, and that really is what unlock what you see now is that fiber revolution in packaging, particularly high value packaging. And so you get these It's like egg cartons on steroids really, right. There's maybe a good way to think about it. Cause it's, amazing where we started at protective packaging that, that we had, the thickness of the cushions and how we've elevated that. Over time. I'd say that's number one on our hip parade, if you will, because that's really what unlocked fiber. And it allowed us, as we started to understand that the mechanical properties. The processing properties wet, dry, fast, et cetera, became very, important how we do blends. We, I think we're the first for the blend on bamboo and sugar cane pulp. Which gives a very nice feel that much of this has been widely copied through, through the industry. And, that's been very gratifying to see. And so we've done other work in wheat straw, which came about why do we use trees? So we answered that question, we looked at wheat straw mushroom packaging was a thing for us for a while. It's a good example for us. Because we were not able to really scale that and get the commercial performance. We get lab based performance, not commercial. Yeah.
Cory Connors:So it worked in the lab, didn't in the
GMT20230711-203451_Recording_640x360:field,
Oliver Campbell:huh? It worked in the lab, but we couldn't get the production to where we needed it.
Cory Connors:Very difficult to scale. Yeah.
Oliver Campbell:Yeah. That was hard. That was hard for us. Maybe someday that gets figured out and we can return to it. Sure.
Cory Connors:There's a lot of innovations in mycelium mushroom packaging, different kinds of growing of packaging. It's just fascinating. The whole concept is
Oliver Campbell:incredible. Yeah. And yeah, my wife and I grew shiitake mushrooms. We were actually in the city of Austin, a commercial farm. We had 250 logs in our backyard. And, so when this came up, I had that background. Cool. I was like, that makes sense because I knew about the mycelium and some of its properties, but those things really led into other areas notably around our ocean bound plastics. Yeah, I
Cory Connors:wanted to ask you about next wave. Can we, let's talk about what next wave ocean bound plastics is.
Oliver Campbell:Next wave is, a consortium of like minded companies dedicated to keeping plastic out of the ocean and in the circular economy. It came about back in, I think we started in 2015 on this Adrian Grenier the, actor who was our social good advocate at the time. And you go what's a social good advocate, right? And, I mean, Dell is a tech company. We tend to be. Very, we're probably more on the nerd scale of things. Right. And so how do we explain some of our technologies to everyday people, and this is what a social good advocate role was. And, we got interested in, looking at this issue of ocean bound plastic. Adrian was a big advocate for it, we did. We did a lot of work, we did modeling where, are the best places to find it. Right. It's almost like a mining problem, if you will we can set up consulted some of the world's leading experts, such as Janet Jambeck, and she is the one who really persuaded us around a strategy of, interception, rather than remediation. The famous example of if your bathtubs overflowing. First thing is just turn off the tap. Rather than to start bailing, right? That's
Cory Connors:been a common phrase with plastic lately. Yeah. Turn off the
Oliver Campbell:tap. Yeah. Turn off the tap. Obviously I think there's a big role for remediation for the world's oceans. I'm not sure that's something, the scale of that is so big. Companies are not really, I think, suited for that. Our needs when we look at it is. How do we get things like continuity of supply? Yeah. Right. When you're trying to get it out of the ocean, that, that becomes a very iffy thing continuity of supply is a big one. Price is important. What do are you sourcing material locally? So we try to source within region rather than shipping material around the world. We didn't think that made much sense from a carbon footprint perspective, and it also allows us to have, I think, when you look at the pickers who pick bottles primarily bottles with water being picked up there's what, 20, 20 million, I think, pickers and, we probably only utilize a very small fraction of that through our programs around human rights, you can have a positive impact. On what, I would characterize the very marginalized communities. And I think this is a long journey. But that is something I find very empowering and very gratifying. There's a side impact where packaging can have this positive impact on people's lives. So we're helping the environment. We're also helping people who really need it as well.
Cory Connors:Great point. Yeah it's, positive for them too. And and can provide a very valuable job. I heard Dave Ford speak at, Waste Expo about that exact thing is these people that are working in the global South that are collecting waste are, it's a good job for them and they are able to support their family, which is wonderful. So there are some, positives here that a lot of people don't understand.
Oliver Campbell:And this is where organizations like Next Wave, I think, are really important because as we looked at the scale of ocean bound plastic, and I'm sure your listeners and viewers have heard more plastic than fish by 2050, etc. Right. The scale of it is so big. That one company can't really do it alone. And so this is where we came up with the idea of let's create industry consortium. And we looked at some precedent that we had certainly in, in, our own industry, where we know where that has occurred. And so we got like minded companies, some of which even competitors HP is a member, for example, leading member. Miller, no human scale truck bicycles soul guard. I mean this is really big companies, small companies, and that was really deliberate because little companies are smaller companies and often move much faster than bigger companies, right? But bigger companies have their own strengths. And so how do we get this diversity, right. Of experience and company size. And take the best of all of it. And I think we've, done that when you look at the number of companies that are countries that we're in, I think it's like nearly 20 countries different materials. And so we're building basically a global network about how to source ocean bound plastic. It's member led right and so members have a voice, which I think really. Helps move the, packaging industry forward in this space in a very transparent, open and scientific way. And we're also acknowledging human rights next wave just recently. Partnered with circulate initiative. So we're, taking it up to another. Level, and it allows us to evolve. And so I'm quite excited about that partnership. And just some quick numbers for your. For your viewers. Yeah, we have a goal by 2025 that will have diverted 25, 000 tons. So it's 25 by 25 is the tagline. And we just finished last year I think we're 20, 000 tons or 80% of the way to that goal. Converted 25,
Cory Connors:000 tons of ocean bound
Oliver Campbell:plastic. Yep. That's the goal by 25 and we're 20, 000 right now. So we're 80, 80% of the way. We got another two years to go. So I think I think we're on a really good trajectory. We're also trying to recruit new companies to the membership as well.
Cory Connors:Right. That's very exciting. I I'm, interested how other companies can, join. Can you tell us about that? Do they, is there a website or an application? Yeah,
Oliver Campbell:you can go to next wave plastics. org. Or if somebody's interested, they can contact myself right
Cory Connors:before we started the show. You were showing me a sample of your new packaging. I think we got to show the audience this and if you're listening, I'm sorry. I'll do my best job to describe it here with Oliver. But can you show it to us and talk us through the engineering
Oliver Campbell:that went into it? Yeah, this is let me show you the packaging first. This is on our new. I don't know if you can read that. I can't read that, but it says this is made from 100% recycled or renewable materials. And this goes to our Dell's 2030 packaging goals so we have a packaging goal by 2030 100% of our packaging will be made from. Renewable or recycled materials in, our ESG annual report just released two weeks ago, we're 94. 5% of the way there. Thank you. Congratulations team. The team, I have a fantastic team of packaging engineers. But this is our new latitude packaging. It looks kind of simple. There's a top cushion,
Cory Connors:craft molded pulp . Is it the bamboo base that we spoke about?
Oliver Campbell:No this, does not have, the bamboo in it. And then we have a bottom cushion, which I think this are. You can see here's the cushion,
Cory Connors:a lot of engineering
GMT20230711-203451_Recording_640x360:there.
Oliver Campbell:Yeah. And yeah this, was developed in record time. We had over 20 different platforms. So these are notebook products that we were developing simultaneously. We did that in record time and it could not have been done without the finite element analysis simulations we had done. And so we did. The packaging I just showed you, we did over 50, 50 simulation runs and what we're doing, we're simulating drop tests. So we do our drop testing virtually. Then when we go into the lab, it's really with the expectation that we validate what the model is. And so that allowed us to do designs in parallel, very quickly overnight. So the team in Asia would be doing something, then the team back here in the US. We're doing at the same time. So it went very, fast. And I really think that's the, future for a lot of packaging is, how do we do things more in simulation and rely on physical, testing. And so that packaging has been very well received. 2030 compliant product protection on it has been outstanding. That's
Cory Connors:something we haven't covered in this show yet is prototyping and testing and prototyping and testing and how much material and energy and time that can take. So doing this virtually sounds like an incredibly sustainable
Oliver Campbell:way of doing things. It is. I mean when, you think about just lead time for tooling. And development schedules are, compressing if, you got to make more than one or two sets of development tools you're probably not going to make it. Right. And
Cory Connors:you'll miss the ship
Oliver Campbell:window, right? Yeah. And, we can probably run, depending on the complexity, anywhere from, six to 12 simulation runs. In the time that it may get us a set of tools. Incredible. So and, that really came out of the fiber development because fiber is, a non elastic material. There are not cushion curves for fiber and this is really what drove us into simulation and the characterization testing that we had to do was. I'll just say this was, not easy, but once we had it turned out to be very accurate.
Cory Connors:Fantastic. Well, congratulations. It sounds like your team's doing amazing things. Anything else that you wanted to tell us before we end the show
Oliver Campbell:here? I think when we look at the future of packaging where's packaging going? I think this is an extremely exciting time to be in packaging. So growing up, I never could have predicted I would have been in packaging. But when, you look at the environmental challenges people understand packaging, the impact that. mismanaged waste, packaging waste in particular, as on the environment. And this is really where a lot of application I think is, coming in. So I think there's, going to be more disciplines coming into packaging from chemical engineering, mechanical engineering to help solve these problems. And the packaging engineer, I think is in a great position about how you pull in all these other disciplines solving packaging challenges. I think fiber I spoke at the international molded fiber association. I gave a note there last, fall in San Antonio. The that industry is, growing its Kager. I think Corey of something like seven or 8%. So phenomenal grows. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. We, we, don't see that slowing down. Our, packaging strategy is, primarily built. Around fiber and eliminating single use plastics where we can. And then the other, I'd say the third trend would be information. So what we see is information about packaging becoming as important as the packaging itself. So what do I, mean by that? So what I mean is, when you look at, all the new sustainable reporting requirements in, the European Union, efr, so companies, Financial reports now have to include the sustainability aspect to it and packaging for us as part of that. How do we pull all this data about all the packaging we produce for hundreds of products? How do you combine all of that? How is your data collection process robust enough to pass a assessment audit? So on the quality of data, we have regulations in many countries and it seems to grow every week reporting from the UK, Spain, Italy, packaging improvement plans in Australia, marketing plans in Korea, another improvement plan in Singapore, India. I can just go on and on. Yeah. How do you collect all this data around packaging and so data strategies around packaging, I think, is becoming critical. Yeah. We have customers who wanna know that information as well. What's the composition of our packaging? Right? How do we pull that information quickly and reliably? I think this is a, key area of, the packaging engineering story and how you tell it. So, yeah, I think there's lots of good stuff. I'm very bullish on packaging . I think it's a great place to be. Me too. And any, younger listeners out there, if you're contemplating a career or what to study in college? Certainly recommend. That intersection around sustainability packaging and sciences. Yeah.
Cory Connors:Well said. I, would like to thank our sponsor SpecRight. They are the, exactly the kind of company that can help you identify your specifications, provide the analysis for reporting to scope one, scope two, scope three emissions. It's a fantastic company and you're right. A lot of companies are struggling. How do we gather this data? What do we, need to know? How do we measure that? So well said Oliver, what's a good, way for people to get in touch with you and the team
Oliver Campbell:over there. So the best way to get in touch with us is, probably through the Dell website, www. dell. com. So we're easy to get ahold of and I urge your your viewers check us out. Take a look at the, take a look at our packaging and our story. Thank
Cory Connors:you, sir. Great interview. Really appreciate your wisdom. Thank you for all the hard work you're doing and thank the people from your team for making, great products. I've enjoyed this laptop for the last year. It's an incredible product. Thank you. I'll pass
Oliver Campbell:that on. Thank you, Corey.
Cory Connors:Bye bye. Thank you, sir.
