Sustainable Packaging Summit and Awards 2024 Amsterdam (Tim Sykes)

Have you entered this awards yet for your sustainable innovation?
Deadline is March 15, 2024
Enter the Awards HERE:
https://packagingeurope.com/sustainability-awards

Planning to attend the event November 12-13? Here is a discount code: CORYC10
https://www.packagingsummit.earth/2024/4830292

Hope to see you all there! 

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

Check out our sponsor this month: 
https://smartsolve.com/

https://specright.com/ 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1329820053/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=corygat

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.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is my friend, Mr. Tim Sykes, the brand director at Packaging Europe. How are

Tim Sykes: 0:39

you, Tim? I'm great, Corey. Great to be back on your

Cory Connors: 0:43

podcast. I'm honored to have you again. And we have some exciting announcements today that I just, just posted about this morning, thank you and your team for making that graphic and, providing a discount code. But before we do any of that stuff, let's talk a little bit about. Mr. Tim Sykes, and how you got into where you are today.

Tim Sykes: 1:03

I've been at Packaging Europe for 16, nearly 17 years. and. really fell into this career by accident. I knew nothing about packaging and, I had twin boys on the way, having finished a PhD in Russian literature, which I guess none of your guests would have been expecting me to say. and that really focused my mind on the fact that I needed to look for a career that had slightly more. so I was thinking about my language skills, my editorial skills, my writing skills, and looking for media jobs. and I happened to fall into a company that was just on the verge of launching packaging Europe. and yeah, got in at the ground floor. And since then have been part of growing it as a brand. and yeah, quite by chance, becoming quite a passionate advocate for packaging and, really learning much more about packaging than I ever wanted to, but at the same time, realizing how central it is to, so many important things happening in the world today, the, obviously, the environmental, so. Challenges, all the things with materials, the way that the world is being transformed by digitization and e commerce, et cetera. it presents enormous challenges for packaging, but also packaging is required to, to solve those, planetary and social challenges. So, it's, yeah, something that I've accidentally become very passionate about.

Cory Connors: 2:31

your background, I've interviewed hundreds of people and I think your background is the most unique and, the most. Opposite of packaging, so I'm impressed with how you pivoted and how you've gotten into this role and become a leader in the world of packaging and sustainable packaging. More, more importantly for this conversation, but yeah, so keep up the good work. I would like to talk about our official partnership, which we announced today. Do you want to explain it to the audience?

Tim Sykes: 3:03

Yes, with pleasure. So we've been working together unofficially for some time, Cory, in, in 2 areas. 1 is our sustainability awards competition. That's a global competition annually looking at the most important, innovations and initiatives, in packaging sustainability. and Cory kindly, joins the, all star independent expert jury. we have 54 judges from all over the world. and Cory is one of those experts that we're very proud to have judging the competition. And then secondly, thank you. secondly, the sustainable packaging summit, which, we have been building over the last few years as a platform where we've tried to bring together all of the key stakeholders. That needs to be assembled and understand each other and align strategically, to drive and accelerate sustainable transformation and packaging. and, yeah, last year we had a great collaboration with you, Corey, in trying to amplify that dialogue, throughout the year with our, Content work together, and then at the event itself. so, that's something we want to build on this year. And yeah, we formalized this partnership so that we can, engage, we're hoping that we'll have an even larger crowd of people, joining the event in Amsterdam, in November this year, but we understand there are going to be. Thousands of people who can't make it to Amsterdam in November, and we want to engage all of you in that dialogue and to bring the learnings and the important, understanding that we get from those, excellent speakers and discussions, to, to a larger audience.

Cory Connors: 4:46

Yeah, well said, and I've been to many events and shows and your, facility that you hold your show in is beautiful building in the heart of Amsterdam, which, that was my first time going to Amsterdam and what an experience, and the building, if I'm not mistaken, used to be the stock exchange in that area. Is that correct?

Tim Sykes: 5:09

that's right. Yeah. It's a 19th century, Dutch building, housing the former stock exchange and it has a lot of. Very large cavernous rooms, which are all, decorated in a really charming way, reflecting the, particular, commodities, for example, that were traded in those particular rooms. So there's one that's, dedicated to grain, and other things. So, yeah, it's a very inspiring. Venue and that's important to us because we want people to feel inspired. They want to want people to feel like this is a special occasion where we're setting the mood for more open, and more impactful kind of conversations than they have in their day to day lives.

Cory Connors: 5:52

It just makes perfect sense to have it there. my wife and I got to tour the area, of the outskirts of Amsterdam and Holland. And we got to learn a lot about the brilliance of the farmers of the people from that area. They are incredibly talented farmers, producers of, natural products, even making paper. Which I thought was very interesting that I learned, on a tour of a rural area, they, they made the paper, the declaration of independence document that America signed, which was, I thought was very interesting that, connection still, even though, we're separate, now we're all together in this, journey to be more sustainable. I thought that was really cool. Whenever I talk

Tim Sykes: 6:41

to you, I learned things that I wasn't expecting to learn. Corey, that's a great fact.

Cory Connors: 6:46

Well, I was just blown away. Like here I, here we are from America. And then we learned that the paper for our independence document from Europe or from England came from Amsterdam. Like this is. What a perfect, just story to tell, how we're all, even though we want to separate certain things, we all are all together in this world. And it's just, that's why I was so excited about this partnership. how important what the people in Europe are doing. Is to the rest of the world. I'm constantly learning new things from you, Tim, and from your constituents at, at the event. So really looking forward to these interviews. I think we'll do 7 or 8 interviews of different, people that will be at your event, but I wanted to talk about the sustainability awards. they are open now for submission and, you're. You're up against some impressive people, but I think it's worth trying and, putting your foot out there for, for, an award. Can you tell us about that and how that process

Tim Sykes: 7:48

works? Certainly. Yeah. So I think it's true to say that the sustainability awards is the leading global competition for sustainable packaging, innovations and initiatives. And as I mentioned, it's independently judged and we have a 54 strong jury of quite. Important people from different areas of the value chain, across the world. so every continent of the world is, represented except probably Antarctica. and

Cory Connors: 8:18

really the,

Tim Sykes: 8:20

yes, we've been trying to contact some penguins, but, it's really a competition that has a mission to highlight. What's most important, on the horizon of innovation and. Around new approaches to, to packaging sustainability and obviously part of that is to, rewards the. The most important, innovations and initiatives and projects, but I think more importantly, we want to disseminate information about, things that the, the judges. Consider important and impactful and valuable. So it's, For a start, if you enter the sustainability awards, whether you win or not, it's going to be seen by these 54 judges. it also, forms a really important data source that, supports packaging Europe's reporting on how we cover the innovation landscape through the year. so it's a great opportunity to. To get your work recognized and seen by more people. and then, yeah, part of a process where we hope to be encouraging cross fertilization of ideas and faster uptake of technologies that can drive. Yeah, sustainable transformation, it's open to. Really anyone who's involved in, sustainable packaging. technologies, materials, Production, so it's free to enter the basically want to have no barrier to enter. it can be organizations from anywhere in the world. it's a global competition. it's open to. products that are already in commercial use, but we also have, categories for pre commercialized innovations. anything really within the spectrum of technologies, supporting sustainability and packaging. So. Whether it's machinery, materials, finished packaging, or even, technologies or initiatives around circular economy and recycling. there are categories that are relevant to that. And hopefully, the, upshot of the competition and the reports that we provide at the end of it, makes some contribution to, showing the world the way forward and how we can accelerate this process.

Cory Connors: 10:31

That's some great points. it's not just, new innovations in packaging materials or design. It's also ancillary items that will help. Like last year, one of the big winners was Amp Robotics, which is a sorting AI technology for, material recycling facilities and more. what an amazing technology they have. And it's changing the landscape for what can be sorted at a MRF and what's recyclable now. So these kinds of innovations are changing the world in a great way. Yeah, very exciting. Do you want to talk to some, maybe some highlights of last year's event, so we can give the people an idea of what's coming next year?

Tim Sykes: 11:20

Yeah, certainly. As I said, it often, it gives us a snapshot of what's. What the innovation landscape looks like, and what the judges see is most important within that. and each year I feel quite. excited to watch this, but also rather frustrated because, I'm, as the competition organizer, I don't have a right to open my mouth or have any influence on it. So, so I'm quietly sometimes, hoping that certain things will be recognized. And sometimes the judges, agree with me and often they don't. But anyway, so one that I would pick out from last year, which, yeah, Which really did impress me was, PNG's, Ecoclick, solution. So that was, symbolic of a much larger trends that we saw across the whole of the competition with, brands shifting from plastic to fiber based packaging solutions. but what really. I think elevated this above a lot of other similar kind of concepts was what a great execution. It was, and also. Impact that it can have in terms of a brand like Procter and Gamble, driving change with the scale that it can bring to it. So this was a laundry pod. box made of, card, and the execution was great because it, had a, an audible and tangible click that the consumer feels when they, close and open, the box. and in, in addition to that, it had a accessibility. Advantage to it so that it was child safe, but it was also accessible to people who have maybe dexterity limitations or cognitive impairments. it was providing significant value in terms of sustainability, but it was also doing that thing that we hope. All of the best packaging does in terms of consumer engagement and providing a. Actually, kind of pleasant experience when you, interact with the product. and in fact, this touches on a point that 1 of the. Keynote speakers at last year's sustainable packaging summit, made, the chief sustainability. Officer of PNG herself was talking about how, when you want to make a sustainable change in packaging, you need obviously needs to work from a business point of view. Therefore, it needs to be a winner with the end consumer. And her point was that. What you should be aiming for is making this sustainability irresistible. And I think that's a really great example of that happening successfully. And it's great, when that was entered into the sustainability awards, I had heard about it. I'd seen the press release, but I hadn't encountered it yet in, in the wild, so to speak. But now, whenever I go to the supermarket, I see. shelves packed high with these eco clip boxes. so that's, yeah, that's very satisfying to see that.

Cory Connors: 14:17

I've heard a lot of keynotes speeches and hers was one of the best. It was so insightful. She brought samples, she showed the audience. This is what I'm talking about. This is what we're doing. maybe this, we tried this. It didn't work. this, and I was just so, appreciative of her, honesty. like, hey, we're a big company. We've made mistakes in the past. we've learned from them. Here's what we're doing now. I was, and the audience I think was very appreciative of her wisdom. And, so well done. I think you. We're up on stage with her, Tim, you do such a great job, interviewing people. And, that was, it was great to see, all of your panels as well.

Tim Sykes: 14:59

So nice job. Thank you, Corey. Can I ask you, whether any finalists or submissions that you saw as a judge in the sustainability awards that, that particularly impressed you last year? I know you already mentioned the AMP robotics, which was the overall winner of the competition.

Cory Connors: 15:16

there were a couple people that I was surprised they didn't win, but I, like you said, it's 54 people's opinion and, very honored to be a part of that, group. Thank you again. I thought the airwave packaging that won was really cool. Mark Rapp, has invented a product that is totally changing the way we do things, with a replacement for plastic bubble. very impressive. I thought one that didn't win that I thought, would have been a really great winner was the, Corona, reusable crate that's made out of, fishing gear that's been recovered from the ocean. I thought, wow, what a great concept to take waste from the sea or, from near the ocean. I don't know if it was all literally pulled out of the ocean, but, And to make something that's going to be reused in perpetuity, great idea and very cool looking. It was lots of different colors. I thought that was very neat, mostly the Corona blue, but, yeah, thank you for that question. Very, very cool, products. Some just blew me away and I hadn't, 26 years in this industry and I had never heard of them, never seen them. so it was fun to see them first before they got onto the market.

Tim Sykes: 17:07

Yeah, indeed. I was, one thing I'll also mention is that, we see, or we've been in this industry long enough to see Cycles of, I don't want to call them fads, but sometimes, certain things come into more fashion and out of fashion. And we've talked about the shift from polymer to paper, but, I think it's also worth pointing out that, looking at the last edition of the competition, there's a lot of important work still going on, in, polymers and, plastic circular economy. and I think it's possibly not catching as much public attention at the moment, because a lot of the breakthrough innovations have already happened. And so what we're seeing now is more incremental progress, as opposed to. This changes anything, everything kind of moment, but I think it's important to recognize that's very important. What's happening there in terms of, going pushing those boundaries in terms of what mono polymers can do. Increasing the amount of recycled content that's going back into to packaging. we try to be objective and neutral when it comes to the materials wars, but I think it's clear to everyone that the plastic. Is always going to be, very important and therefore. Realizing the sector economy in plastic, is 1 of the most important, jobs that we have, as an industry. Agreed. I would also mention in fact, that, around plastics, that there was some interesting, finalists last year. In fact, one of them a winner, thinking about the interaction between, the label and the plastic bottle. So yes, one of the winners was Pepsi, China, which had introduced a multi-pack that had no labels on the individual bottles, and instead it had the, the logo embossed. In the bottle itself, so it retains that brand equity, but, just eliminated some material for the benefit of recycling and material reduction. And, personally, I enjoy that kind of minimalist approach to, The packaging, and I thought that was a great, a great solution to, to find the, I agree.

Cory Connors: 19:13

Also, it's amazing to see Kraft Heinz, with their 100%, PCR, bottle and, lid. I got to interview my friend, Linda Roman from Kraft Heinz. She is a brilliant person. If, if you haven't looked her up, make sure to follow her and her, content. She's, they're doing great things there. It's cool to

Tim Sykes: 19:32

see. Indeed. I think we have to say that Kraft Heinz was the rowdiest table at the Sustainability Awards. They

Cory Connors: 19:41

deserved it. They won and they earned it. Yeah. Yes, indeed. Well, what are we looking forward to for 2024? Let's talk about that.

Tim Sykes: 19:50

Yeah, indeed. It's always exciting to look ahead and to think about what we're, what we can expect from future editions and again, using. Using the sustainability awards as a kind of barometer for the, innovation landscape, mixing my metaphors terribly there. But, anyway,

Cory Connors: 20:10

you can do that. That's okay.

Tim Sykes: 20:13

so I think one, one area I think is very exciting is digitization. Last year, for example, we had a lot of interesting entries looking at, connected packaging, smart packaging, relating that to reuse, you mentioned the AI, robotics solution, and I think, we're only at the very beginning of how AI is going to change. Absolutely everything in, it's going to change the human condition for better or worse. so we're only just beginning to understand how it can be deployed. For the benefit of, packaging sustainability. So, I'm hoping we might get some interesting solutions there, even if it's not telling us everything. but I think within digitization, there's so much potential for joining the dots between the different data touch points. the. The data we have from production and logistics, then the consumer engagement opportunities, and then right through to the sorting center, as we've seen in the robotics. so, I'm hoping that we might see some projects that I haven't come across coming out there. 2 other things I mentioned, then I think, reuse is we saw a real uptick in projects last year. and I think. Well, I'm hoping to see more cool solutions, but I think in addition to that, I'm really keen to see more applications where it's not just showing this is a cool way of executing it, but something that goes beyond that sort of pilot scale to driving. Much larger uptake. So maybe, more than innovation and reuse. What I'm really hoping to see in this year's sustainability awards is, examples of brands that are working together, creating a common platform, and making it something that really has some impact, in the market. I

Cory Connors: 21:59

love that thought. That's it's time to stop talking about it. It's time to tell us what's working and how we can really make an impact on this world. That's a great point. I love that.

Tim Sykes: 22:09

anything that you're hoping to see from the awards as a judge?

Cory Connors: 22:13

Yes. I want to see things that have been successful, like you said, and Innovative new concepts that nobody's thought of. I always enjoy those. there are some very talented, designers in this world of packaging. And, it's a lot of fun to see how they're eliminating materials, reducing carbon footprints, lowering their. the need for packaging, with the bare minimum while still successfully shipping the product to the consumer. And, the move to mono materials is still happening. it's fun to watch. it's exciting. it's also, you see some misses, but you see some wins and you want to see people trying. So yeah, very excited about it, but we make, we need to remind everybody to sign up to attend the event. I'll include a link in this show notes. And then, what else, Tim, we need them to sign up for the awards to enter their latest innovations.

Tim Sykes: 23:11

Indeed, yes, and the deadline for submissions is the 15th of March 15th. So, yeah, you can find, the details on the Packaging Europe website. There's a dedicated page about the awards. You can, submit, you can only submit, through the awards platform. very easy to do, fill in some information, and no cost to do that.

Cory Connors: 23:34

Right. Well, thank you, my friend. I appreciate your wisdom and very much excited to work with you and your team this year.

Tim Sykes: 23:42

Thank you. Really looking forward to it. And, yeah, I guess over the coming collaborations we have through your podcast. We'll also talk about the content, as we start to announce more information about the speakers and the topics at the sustainable packaging summit. but, yeah, maybe I can tell you a little bit about, about, Okay. What we're planning to do this year, as a sneak preview, so we're not announcing the, speakers just yet, but, like last year's event, there will be two main streams of simultaneous content, one that's focusing mainly on the big strategic questions where we need all of the key stakeholders to come together and to, align around, Where are the pain points? Where are the points of disconnect? how can we work together more effectively? and then secondly, a stream that's focusing on innovation opportunities. and part of that is the sustainability awards that we've just talked about. but we'll also have, a session for startups that we're curating to pitch. most exciting emerging technologies. We'll be bringing R& D projects from around the world and also bringing leaders of innovation and commercialization to come and talk about their insights as to how practically to get these projects over the line and To market faster, and then also hearing from some of the key materials platforms about their challenges, and then how, as an industry, they're working together on sustainability. And I think 1 thing I'd want to emphasize about the mission of the sustainable packaging summit is that. We are really focused on impact, so I've been to a lot of great conferences in my time where. There's still sometimes a frustration that there's too much focus on. This is what we're doing. maybe sometimes a little bit too much restating points of consensus. So we're really putting in the work to make sure that we are focusing on the difficult questions. The future facing questions of. What isn't working or what can we do better? How can we speed up this process? and really bringing people together very. Very openly to talk about, those challenges that they face. And I think one of the strengths that we have found and what is most gratifying about this platform is that there's a real sense of community, around different stakeholders who feel that this is a place where we can really try to get things done and to, shed more light on, on what can be done better. Great points. Great. very much with an international focus. So, wherever your audience are in the world, we really want you to be part of that conversation, whether it's, engaging digitally throughout the year, or whether you have a chance to join us in Amsterdam.

Cory Connors: 26:38

I think you're at risk of possibly selling the venue out this year. so we need to. Encourage people to sign up quickly, if they're interested. it's a small venue, but, last year was, very full. and I think this year will be even more people. So, at least that's my prediction.

Tim Sykes: 26:57

Hopefully. Yes. Yeah, we had, I think, 625, 630 people at the event last year. And, we have space to grow and we're expecting it to be a bit larger again this year.

Cory Connors: 27:09

Well, thank you, Tim. Appreciate you and look forward to seeing everyone listening and, at this event.

Tim Sykes: 27:15

Thank you. Thanks, Corey. really looking forward to working with you this year. Take care.