Inside Packaging’s Future Innovators with Danielle Goad and Nicole Toole

Bonjour and Hello, 

In this episode, Cory Connors interviews two standout winners of the Paris Packaging Week Future Leaders Program—Danielle Goad and Nicole Toole—to explore their journeys, innovations, and perspectives on the future of sustainable packaging. Danielle shares how discovering packaging at Cal Poly led to a global leadership role at SpecRight and her upcoming move to London as she builds the EMEA region. Nicole recounts founding ECGO as a college project and transforming it into an AI‑powered recycling education and behavior‑change platform used by students, universities, and brands.
Both leaders reflect on being recognized among the top ten emerging leaders worldwide and discuss the importance of global collaboration, consumer behavior insights, regulatory preparedness (PPWR & EPR), and inspiration from younger generations. They share what they're most looking forward to at Paris Packaging Week—from innovation zones to reuse concepts to the energy of an international community passionate about packaging.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Danielle’s path from student to global leader and her work scaling SpecRight internationally
• Nicole’s founding of ECGO and the role of AI, incentives, and data insights in improving recycling behaviors
• The significance and impact of being named Future Leaders by Paris Packaging Week
• Evolving sustainability messaging and the shift toward value‑driven, consumer‑relevant communication
• The rapid pace of regulatory change and the industry’s need for continual education (PPWR, EPR)
• Cross‑industry collaboration and the packaging sector’s tight‑knit, globally connected nature
• Excitement about innovations in reuse, sustainability tech, and meeting global peers at Paris Packaging Week

Resources Mentioned:

• SpecRight – Specification management platform
• ECGO – AI‑powered consumer education and recycling platform
• Paris Packaging Week Future Leaders Program

Contact:

Danielle Goad:

LinkedIn: Danielle Goad
Email: danielle@specright.com
Visit SpecRight at their stand in the PCD space during Paris Packaging Week

Nicole Toole:

Website: ecgo.co
LinkedIn: Nicole Toole

Closing Thoughts:

Cory, Danielle, and Nicole highlight the tremendous momentum building within sustainable packaging—driven by young leaders, new technologies, data‑driven insights, and global collaboration. They emphasize that meaningful industry change requires education, curiosity, and fresh thinking from every generation. Both guests hope their recognition as Future Leaders inspires other emerging professionals to share ideas boldly, challenge the status quo, and pursue innovative solutions that reduce waste and improve the planet.

Thank you for tuning in to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors!

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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

0:07

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Corey Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Corey Connors. In today's episode, I connected with Daniel Goad and Nicole Tool, who are both winners of the prestigious Paris Packaging Week Future Leaders Program. We got to talk about their careers and what a great honor it was to be considered for Future Leader of Paris Packaging Week. I'd also like to thank our sponsors, 3M, SpecRite, and Lorac CPI. We couldn't do this show without Welcome to Sustainable Packaging Podcast with Cory Connors. I'm so excited today to talk about the Paris Packaging Week Future Leaders. We've got two of my friends here, Danielle Goad and Nicole Tool. Welcome both of you. And I'll ask you each to just kind of introduce yourselves. So Danielle, start with you. Yeah, absolutely. Hi, everyone. I'm Danielle Goad. I am the director of EMEA with SpecRite, which is a specification management platform leader in the space. We're really focused on helping companies and businesses a lot in the fast moving consumer goods space, create packaging specifications for sustainability needs, PPWR and EPR. Right now, I know as a a big topic and so excited to dive in today a little bit more on that. Nicole. Thank you so much for having me, Cory. I've been a huge fan of the podcast for some time, so it's kind of surreal to be here today. My name's Nicole. I'm the founder and CEO of EECO. And so EECO is a mobile application that uses artificial intelligence to educate consumers on how to... properly recycle, compost, and reuse their waste. So you can take a picture of literally anything. We detect that, and then we reward you for actually reusing, composting that product. So we do a lot of work, one, to engage Gen Z specifically on recycling. The other side of our business, which is really cool, is actually understanding recycling behaviors, understanding consumption behaviors, and using that to help brands better understand their packaging, what's resonating and what they can do to improve that. So, yeah. Well, congratulations to both of you for being selected as uh two of just 10 people in the world as uh future leaders for pairs packaging week. That's a really big honor in the industry. And uh I want to just commend you both for getting to a point in your career where you're considered a future leader, because this is not an easy spot to get to. You've done a lot of work to get here. So I want to talk about that first. Danielle, can you tell us? What's your background that got you to this point and to be considered for such an honor? Yeah, my, my background with spec right is a little all over the place, but been really exciting, you know, growing with the company as we scale, I guess, I'll start with, you know, my education back in school. I was I feel like lucky enough to stumble upon the industrial technology and packaging degree at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California. And, you know, I think it was kind of by, you know, chance and by research that I really found this like blend of business and engineering that was available basically during my time in school, joined on as a freshman and really like loved the program, the mentors, uh you know, the professors and thought it was just such a interesting intersection of like design and engineering and sustainability and tech. so, I feel really lucky that I got the opportunity because I feel like, you know, I know a lot of programs and organizations out there trying to educate even more of the younger generation, right? In middle school and high school or lower levels of education, trying to, you know, boost packaging up as a degree and real path, you know, after. So that's, that's kind of where my, my world of packaging started. And then I actually found SpecRight while in school. and uh started on the kind of implementation services side of the business, which I found really fascinating, really loving the supply chain world of everything because I got to actually work with our customers and understand how their businesses operate, how packaging was really, you know, this complex kind of piece of innovation. And after moving that, you know, moved from partnership roles to product manager roles. And most recently, Before my role now, I was the chief of staff for our previous CEO and founder, Matthew Wright, who is a great thought leader himself, which I know has talking with Cory um on other kind of discussions. But I think just really learning from him around his story and packaging and the waste of not only time and resources, but we always talk about putting time back in the people's hands of loving what they do. ah And so I think it's really been great to just get to work with amazing people, right? Who really love the work that they do in packaging. But yeah, excited to be kind of stepping into my new role as director of EMEA. I'm relocating from the States to London, moving my life over there and really starting with a small go-to-market team, implementation team to support our growing global customer base out there. Congrats. What an exciting venture. Nicole, your turn. Yeah, so similar to Danielle, my journey started in school. my company, Ecgo, was actually a school project and that's how it originally started. during my sophomore year at university, which was in 2020, which is crazy to think that that's over half a decade ago now. But I was in a program and the goal of that program was to create a technological solution to a societal problem. And so at that time, my team was like, know, pollution's a big issue. We looked around and noticed that a lot of our recycling bins looked just like the trash cans. So we really wanted to figure out, is there a way for us to engage college students to participate differently? So the aha moment was that we bet college students would do the right thing if we gave them Chick-fil-A for it. And so that was how it started. So to test that hypothesis, yeah, you can do it. I mean, can change behavior very quickly with food, especially with college students. So we had some tables, we invited students to recycle with us and we literally gave them discounts to restaurants. And so that table inflected over 2000 materials that day. And so we were like, cool, you know, like, again, students will do anything for food, but what else is going on in the industry? So I went on to do more research trying to understand student and consumer behaviors around recycling. And the three things that came out of that were, was one, people are simply confused. Recycling guidelines are different based on locality. They're based different based on buildings, which makes it really difficult. Two, they don't see the impact of their waste. So we put our recycling or we put our plastic bottle in the bin. Recycling or landfill and then we never see it again. So like did it go to the recycling center? You don't really know did it go to the landfill? You've never seen one before unless you live near one And the last was just that incentive piece. We wanted to create a solution that Touched on all of those three areas in order to change behavior over time. So The next hypothesis that we wanted to test was just would people pay for this like is their business model here, which is very important. And so before I graduated, we got our first two university clients. So we work with universities to help them reach their zero waste goals. That's part of the business. And then now we're working with brands specifically. So it's definitely been a journey, but it's been really fun to one, understand like the way side of things. And now we're really digging into that human behavior aspect and understanding like, okay, how does different factors, sustainability, price, preference, influence what people are actually buying and recycling over and over and over again. Hmm. So exciting. I love the idea of enticing people with a benefit to do the right thing. And like you said, food is a great enticement. Well done. Especially for young people and well, anybody. I don't know anybody that doesn't like Chick-fil-A. So that makes a lot of sense. Well, let's talk about Paris Packaging Week and this Future Leader program. Danielle, how did you hear about this program and you know, What does it mean to you to be nominated and how do you think it'll help your career? Yeah, I think, you know, I feel like I'm always looking for kind of like communities that are moving forward the industry, whether that's nonprofits, right, or organizations or just thought leaders, right. A lot of us are all trying to learn more and educate ourselves through people who are, you know, talking about these kinds of topics that, you know, we're discussing today. So Paris Packaging Week, right, is obviously a uh a leading event just in EMEA overall. And so when I learned about the Future Leaders group, I thought, you know, this is a great opportunity to kind of learn from others, which I think we're already kind of seeing. We've had a few like cohort meetings, I'll call them, where we get to like start to meet each other before the actual event in person. I'm sure the event in person will be even better. But it's just interesting, right, to hear how people are like driving change forward where also very different, but I think like what is interesting, whether it's, you know, Nicole's idea or like with the younger generation or, you know, how SpecRite might touch more of like the digital natives and people who are like coming in with technology to their next roles. I think there's so much to learn from like the next generation even, and then beyond. And so yeah, it's just, it's an interesting kind of group to be. be part of and to learn from was why I was interested in it. Great, cool, same question. Yeah, and I'll have to say the same thing. think right now it's, I'm really just looking to learn about what other ideas are out there. Circular economy and solid waste management is a big topic. And what the future of that is gonna look like over the next 10, 15, 20 years is gonna take young voices and fresh ideas. So I think it was really, Awesome when we had that first onboarding call with the rest of the cohort and which they kind of just shared how really wanting to bring those young bring young leaders to the forefront to have these conversations. So I think like from my perspective, I definitely want to learn. I want to hear about the new ideas. That's definitely what enticed me to apply and then want to continue to participate. And then also just wanting to hear just what are the conversations people are having around how we get that consumer behavior change because I think technology is awesome and it's doing a lot of good. And also we do need to change how we as people understand waste and the relationship that we have with it. I think Europe has done an incredible job and we can learn a lot of things and bring it to the United States. So I'm also really excited to just kind of hear those solutions and... um share even some of the research we have on what we've seen to be successful and you know just learn grow all those things. Great job. Yeah, the team at Paris Packaging Week and EasyFairs put on an incredible show. It's one of my favorites, uh top three for sure. Maybe top two, yeah. I highly recommend going to Paris Packaging Week and I'm so excited for both of you. Will this be your first time for both of you? It will be less. Great. Well, that's cool. And I think we get to do a panel together where I'll moderate and I'll ask each of you to kind of tell your story and talk about uh why, why packaging is so important for the future and why the technology you're working on is such a key value proposition. What are you most excited about attending Paris Packaging Week? What's something that you'd like? I can't wait for this. I'm specifically really interested in like the PPWR EPR topic. know Nicole mentioned some other areas of sustainability. feel like because sustainability is so wide, like we all probably have areas, right, of interest where we're looking to learn from others. And this has just been like a very big topic with, think, a lot of still question marks for EMEA specifically or Europe. And so I'm really just interested to hear from like brands on how they're kind of getting ready for the regulations and adapting to it. And then, I mean, overall, who doesn't love going to Paris? mean, it can't be a bad place to be for the week. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm a huge foodie, so I will take any excuse to go eat at some other restaurant. Nicole, what are you excited about Paris? Yeah, mean, definitely the food, the sites, of course. I've only been to Paris one other time, so I feel like I didn't see everything. So I'm excited to do part two and add to that. And then I would say I'm really excited to see some of the packaging innovations, specifically around reuse. I think that's like a really interesting area and it's still developing. I think that is going to be really cool to see like what ideas people have around reuse and like getting consumers to change that behavior or shift their behavior towards participating more in that action. Yeah, so packaging, technology developments and how we can better reuse and recycle products. think you'll both be thrilled with the food, obviously, and the sites. And I think you'll be really excited about the kind of the new innovation zone they have there at Paris Packaging Week, because it's the latest and greatest in what's happening in tech and new things in sustainable packaging. I'm excited about that too, but also the food and all of that experience. It's just an incredible place to be. I can't wait. I feel like this is a very collaborative space, right? The packaging world at the end of the day is so small. So many individuals really know each other. It's a very tight-knit community. So I feel like these kinds of events are a great way to bring all of those like-minded individuals together and give them a space in person, which is nice and sometimes more rare these days to get to actually have those discussions. I agree. And Paris packaging week has grown dramatically. was to the point where they had to change where it's located. it's where we're now at the largest facility in the area, because so many people want to go to this great event. So I think you'll be thrilled to see all the booths or as they call them their stands, with different innovations and different things. Uh, I think we're all a US based, which is pretty cool to do this podcast about. Paris in Paris packaging week, but let's talk about the packaging industry. Nicole, can you, can you tell us something that you're hearing in the industry, something that you wish would change in the industry? Yeah, so recently I went to the Sustainable Brands Conference in San Diego, which was a fantastic conference. And similar to what I think Paris Packaging is going to be like, it's also very collaborative. And I think when there's people who already care about sustainability from a foundational standpoint, it allows for you to act collaborative on how do we actually push sustainable solutions forward. So. I would say a lot of the conversations that were had at the conference was around messaging of sustainability, specifically in the United States. As we know, there's been a lot of backlash around environmental solutions, sustainability, DEI, et cetera. And so a lot of companies are shifting just how they're talking about each of these things. And also consumers are, I think one of the... One of the points that a panelist mentioned was that sustainability is apparently a very polarizing term when consumers move out. So they don't want to hear that a product is more sustainable. They want to hear that it's easier to use or it's going to help them because it has a better functionality. So the shift is more so that, yes, we can continue to build sustainable solutions. And we also need to... potentially change the framing of it so that it's something that consumers can automatically relate to. And at the end of the day, it's about providing value. So how do you communicate that value to the consumer in a way that they get it and it's an easy buy for them. So I think that's like, I wouldn't call it a challenge or even a hurdle. It's just kind of a reframe. It's like, we have to go back to understanding what are the consumers looking for? What is the behavior that we want them to do and how do we ensure that we're creating solutions, processes, products, whatever that provide that value and make it an easy yes for them to participate. Which I think is exciting because like I love this stuff. So like this is very fun, but I think that's kind of like the challenge that I think as an industry, we are going to have to continue to iterate around and just like do testing messaging, testing different products and seeing how we can. ultimately shift that consumer behavior over time to more sustainable and conservative solutions. points. Yeah, it all comes back to the consumer and what they're going to actually do, not just what we think they should do and making it easier for them to, like you said, recycle compost or whatever the case may be, or reuse. Danielle, what are your thoughts on the industry and what needs to change? Yeah, I mean, I'll add to that first. feel like it is such an interesting space. I'm excited to talk with Nicole more in person, but I think like, yeah, at the end of the day, like we're all consumers, right? But we're also like probably more on the, you know, highly educated sustainability spectrum of it because we do go to these conferences and are in so much of this space. And so it is really interesting just to like think about, you know, the behavioral or even just like educational aspects that need to happen. Um, I feel like on my end, right, when I'm working more with brands, I'm still seeing and working with brands, even global organizations who, don't have like the resources internally, even educated on like some of the new regulations that are coming up that are maybe forcing some of these changes in design or innovation. so a lot of them are also right, trying to upskill or work with consultants or comans or others, right. That have these like specialties. So. uh I think that overall, I know in the US over the last year, EPR has caused a lot of this kind of need for education and chaos within organizations. It's been like a huge uplift for so many companies and something that they solely need to feel like they focus on even before the innovation, getting their data together, being able to report. And I think moving to kind of the EMEA group, and market, has been interesting just to see the shift in the maturity of maybe some of the expectations around regulatory, but their landscape is also constantly changing with PPWR coming up. there's, think overall, everything is constantly evolving. And I think just education and kind of keeping on top of that of what is the latest area? There's so much that an organization could care about. just a lot to take in, right? Well said. Well, I want to kind of talk about how you two and as future leaders will use this, you know, award or this, you know, recognition to grow in your career. Nicole, what do you think? What are ways that a future leader can say, hey, you know, look at this. This is really great. And this is why you should work with me or, know, Something like that. Yeah. So I think one of the things I'm excited about during the panel specifically is being able to share, I think we're going to share like an innovation that we want to improve within our respective industries and actually present that idea. And so I think that's a really great way for us to kind of show the skills and some of the innovations that we're like specifically working on and showing it in a way that highlights how we can actually improve a brand, improve a product with some of the ideas that we currently have. So I think that's just like a really great way for us to show that's, I guess like what we can do and like our skill set in that regard. And then I think also just being able to during the panel, of course, share what we're seeing in from our perspectives in the industry and what we hope to see in the future. Hopefully that will spark some curiosity, but also just wanting to rethink maybe the status quo. I think people within our generation, like we're not in those senior positions yet. So all we really can do right now is inspire and get people to kind of wonder, is there a different way that we can do this? And perhaps we can use this time to kind of highlight. some the ideas that we have and get the ball rolling on starting to implement some of these new ideas, new innovations that we have. So I don't know if I really answered your question, but I think that is probably like what I hope to accomplish with the platform is just share those ideas, share those innovations, talk to people about it and see like, okay, can we get companies to think in a different way? Yeah. Great, thank you, Nicole. Danielle, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I love the idea of like inspiring the curiosity of others there. I think it's just, you know, providing like new ways of thinking and continuing to kind of like elevate those, those messages. I feel like kind of a different path is like one area I've always been close to is like the next, the next generation and educating them. Like at SpecRite, I've always done our like academia program over the years where we work with like the universities. that have packaging programs or have food science programs. And I think like so much of this also is like, it's cool when obviously Nicole and I at some point probably saw this or saw other leaders or saw other blogs about them. I think like so much of it is also just like inspiring other young voices to feel like they should share their ideas. And I think that like all of that should be like welcomed. to the table, of ideas and pushing boundaries is how those discussions will happen. So I hope that it kind of also inspires other younger people to kind of bring their new fresh ideas. I love that. It seems like a unique time in the industry where people, younger people like yourselves actually, um, are, being listened to, are, are, are you're being heard. Your, your, your ideas are on the table, right? You know, you're at the table for the discussion rather than in the past where it used to be, uh, Oh, they're, they're a junior person. You know, we don't, you know, we're not ready for their thoughts yet. I think, uh, you to get to benefit from this. New mindset of, Hey, the young people in the industry really have some awesome ideas. know, Nicole started her own business. You know, you're, you're, leading a, uh, an expansion to Europe for a uh global company. This is so exciting to see young people doing such big things in the industry. So nice job to both of you. Okay. Last questions. Why should we attend Paris packaging week and how do we get in touch with you? Who wants to go first? Hahaha You want to go to? Okay. I think we should attend Paris Packaging Week to expand our horizons and connect with people, learn about new ideas. I feel like we've put on this kind of line of thinking around learning and sharing ideas. So I think that is a big reason why anyone should attend, is just seeing what other people in other countries, other places are building, what they're creating solutions and solving problems to. And then to get in contact, you can go onto our website, ecgo.co. And you can also connect with me on LinkedIn, the COLE tool. m Danielle. Yeah, I think it's just a great opportunity to connect in person, to learn from each other, to again, just bring everyone together. I'm really excited to not only meet the cohort, but talk with so many of our customers, you so many kind of innovating brands that will be attending. I think these kinds of shows also like bring all aspects of like the value chain together, right? You have your vendors, have your brands, you have retailers, you have... software companies, right? There's so many aspects of like thought leaders here. And so I think it's a great place to connect. We will have a exhibit in the PCD space. So Specright we'll have a booth or a table, whatever you want to call it over there. um a stand, there we go. I was like looking for the one word that I just didn't say. So will have a spec right we'll have a stand in the PCD space. So if you want to connect I'm available on LinkedIn Daniel Goad or Daniel at spec right.com is my email and would be happy to set up some time there. Thank you both. This has been awesome. I'll include all those links in the show notes. So if you're listening, just scroll up and you can click on that to connect with Nicole or Danielle. Congratulations to you both and we'll see you in Paris. Thank you, Thank you, Cory. See ya.