- Defining sustainability
- Impediments to sustainability in packaging
- Future outlook
Ciaran Little | VP, Americas & Asia Pacific, Information Division, Smithers
Ciaran is responsible for delivering Smithers global growth initiatives and supporting Smithers Asian client base.
Ciaran has been working for Smithers for nearly twenty years supporting the packaging, print and paper value chains with key market and technical information in the form of conferences, reports and consulting. Ciaran has worked on winning and delivering a wide range of market consultancy projects to major industry players, recent projects include a global assessment of printing and packaging growth trends and market assessment for a major new product launch for one of the world’s largest packaging converters.
Ciaran has launched and managed many international conferences in this sector including Digital Print for Packaging, SustPack, Specialty Papers and Print Futures.
Ng Pei Kang is the CEO of TRIA, a venture-backed, sustainable and innovative foodware company. Today, TRIA’s products serve more than 200 million meals a year with clients consisting of brands such as KFC, 4Fingers and Soup Spoon. In 2019, TRIA achieved a
technology breakthrough that allows a closed-loop outcome for single-use foodware. This end-to-end solution, Bio24, could be a game changer for the packaging industry.
For her efforts on circularity, TRIA has been featured in no less than 70 media events in the last three years, which includes Plasticity (Thailand, Malaysia), Global Table (Australia), FIA Future Summit (Singapore), and being mentioned by Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Heng Swee Keat, at the Singapore Budget. TRIA has earned a number of accolades such as the Emerging
Enterprise Award, Pentawards, ASEAN-Korea Excellent Design Award and Singapore Packaging Star Awards. Pei Kang is an honouree on Eco-Business’s A-list for Sustainability Leadership; Tatler’s Gen.T as one of the young leaders who are shaping Asia’s future; and a juror for Singapore Good Design Award.
In his work, Pei Kang advocates the need for an outcome-driven mindset (not promise-driven) and believes that innovation is the key to drive sustainability. He believes sustainability is not a zero-sum game and how we can break the resistances in adoption is through the value-adding of innovation.
Han Zhang, is the Sustainability Director for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics Asia Pacific. Han is responsible for driving Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals and developing strategies to grow business value. Han leads key programs addressing critical business sustainability issues such as marine debris, recycling and driving a circular economy, together with various value chain partners and industry associations throughout Asia. Prior to joining Dow, Zhang held various positions at ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil as life cycle assessment analyst and engineer.
Zhang earned his doctorate degree in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment from the University of Michigan in 2009. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Thermal Engineering from Tsinghua University.
Markus Gnirck is the founder and CEO of Lecka Vietnam, a leading healthy & sustainable snack company in Vietnam. He started Lecka with the vision to offer healthy, natural and functional nutrition to active people while being as sustainable as possible. As one of the first companies in the region, Lecka is a certified B Corporate, uses no plastic packaging and became carbon neutral in February 2022. Besides Lecka, Markus is the co-founder of tryb Group, a financial technology investment firm in Singapore that invests in early stage companies in South East Asia. Previously, he was the co-founder and Global COO of Startupbootcamp Fintech, the leading early stage incubation program globally with more than 180 fintech investments. Markus was on the Forbes Asia 30 under 30 list in 2017. He is a passionate long distance trail runner and advocate for ethical and social businesses.
Regula is Circulate Capital’s Managing Director, Asia. She manages the investment team and oversees Circulate Capital Ocean Fund’s investment portfolio in Southeast Asia. Together with her team, Regula manages asset allocations as well as due diligence, portfolio management of fund investments. She also provides strategic advisory to the portfolio companies, focusing on strategy, business development, fundraising, key hiring decisions, financial management and governance. Regula is an experienced global professional with over 20 years' of leadership, business development, project management finance and social enterprise/start-up expertise. Throughout her career, she held positions in corporate strategy, M&A, private equity, financial controlling and business development. She further established a social enterprise in the Philippines, developing sustainable housing technologies, establishing production and construction of affordable housing solutions in collaboration with urban poor communities and civil society organizations in Southeast Asia.
Nerida has worked in the Packaging industry for close to 25 years and holds the Vice President Sustainability & Save Food role at the World Packaging Organisation. She is also the Executive Director position at the Australian Institute of Packaging which is the peak professional body for packaging training & education in Australasia.
Nerida is passionate about educating the industry on the important role that packaging plays in minimising Food Waste and how designing Save Food Packaging can make a difference. She is also one of the creators of the annual Xmas Foodbank hamper program which is designed to help those who are vulnerable and in need. The volunteer program has packed over 14,0000 hampers to the value of over $1 Million AUD over the last 11 years. She , is the lead for the Save Food Packaging Consortium project within the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre and was the packaging representative on DAWE’s National Food Waste Strategy Steering Committee.
Nerida is also committed to helping educate and train packaging professionals in the importance of sustainable and circular packaging design and recognising best practice in this area. She is also the WPO lead for the Global Packaging Design for Recycling Guide which is currently being translated in multiple languages across the globe. The second stage of the global project is the development of a large series of country waste stream mapping guides which are in progress.
Colgate Palmolive views sustainability as critically important to the business.
Our sustainability efforts span all aspects of our business, including supply chain, marketing, innovation, customer development and people development.
We are committed to reducing our use of plastic in our packaging, using more recycled plastic, and increasing the recyclability of our plastic packaging.
Ted has over 20 years experience in FMCG packaging. He is based in Sydney, Australia and leads the evolution to sustainable packaging for Asia Pacific.
Ted is a passionate advocate for sustainable packaging.
Paul has huge experience in all aspects of packaging and has an exceptional understanding of packaging materials, and processes. Paul developed Tesco strategy for packaging sustainability including the creation of preferred materials and formats guidelines.
Currently working for Tesco with responsibility for the non food area for both Own Label and Branded products. Has previously been responsible for the Tesco Packaged Food areas as well as Household and Personal Care.
In his personal life Paul is Chairman of the Thriplow Daffodil Festival – an annual charity event which has raised over £1m to date.
Derrick is in charge of the Technical Consultancy Services in South East Asia. He is the link between key customers in these markets with UPM worldwide operations. He provides technical competence in resolving performance issues for customers and support regional sales team to create business value by enhancing product performance and service offering. Having been in the paper industry for 20 years, he continues to develop strong links between internal cum external functions in Europe and Asia.
Sealed Air Sustainability Director for the APAC region based in Melbourne Australia. Alan is leading customer and packaging industry engagement with sustainable packaging and retail trends and regular public speaking engagements.
Busy in Industry being currently active with the Australian Institute of Packaging contributing to development of Sustainable Packaging Guidelines for reducing food waste. A founding member and former president of the Australasian Bioplastics Association. Currently on the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) Design for recovery working group.
Alexander has 10 years of experience in the packaging & consumer goods industry in different marketing roles. In his current role, he has a strong focus on developing sustainable solutions through laminating adhesives and coatings in flexible packaging by reducing the carbon footprint, enabling better recyclability or use of safer chemicals.
Nirav is a Senior Executive, Marketing at Mitsui Chemicals Asia Pacific. He has over 7 years’ experience in the specialty chemicals industry with key interest in sustainability. An Engineer by training, he has worked with clients across Asia-Pacific in the packaging sector and helped them overcome challenges in developing sustainable packaging solutions. He holds a Bachelor and Master degree from Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T) Roorkee in Polymer Science and Technology.
Richard Smith is the Sustainability Director for Amcor Flexibles Asia Pacific.
Richard is a Chemical Engineer and has worked in the packaging industry for over 30 years focused heavily on innovation and enabling brand owners to become more circular through responsible packaging solutions.
In 2013 Richard was made a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Packaging for significant contribution to the development of innovative plastics packaging.
More recently in 2020, Richard was appointed as a non-executive Director of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO).
Aster Teo is Head, Regional Marketing Asia South since January 2021.
Before joining Borouge, Aster spent 18 years in the Specialty Products and Chemicals industry where she has taken up leading positions in R&D, business development and marketing of polymer additives and performance coatings.
Aster joined Borouge in 2012 and is presently part of Asia South Packaging leadership team where she heads the Asia South region growth strategy and marketing initiatives for the Packaging, Agriculture and Healthcare businesses.
Prior to this, she was General Manager, Commercial Excellence and also held positions in Sales and Product Management within Borouge.
Aster is a polymer technologist and has a Master of Science degree from Loughborough University in UK majored in Polymer Science.
Coming soon...
Masao has over 10 years of experience in the synthetic paper industry where closely related with printing & packaging industries.
Following YUPO’s company mission “ Contributing for making better society with YUPO’s unique products”, he has been focusing on to provide a proper recognition for the recyclability of YUPO product, especially in In-Mold Label industry.
Prof. Du Huanzheng is currently working at UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD) and Tongji Circular Economy Institute. He is a key expert in the consulting panel for National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In 2019, a special report on the green revolution for express packaging was commented by Chinese leaders. He was awarded "2019 Global Circular Economy Award -- Leadership Award" from the World Economic Forum.
She joined the public policy affairs department of Citeo in 2021, after experiences in the high administration and law firms specialized in European law and Environmental law. She works very closely with all the actors of the packaging value chain in particular on the Circular Economy Package, the European plastics strategy, the circular plastic alliance, the national pacts on plastic packaging, the new circular economy action plan within the European Green Deal and EPR projects around the world.
She graduated from the Paris 1 Sorbonne University (Master in European Economic Law) and holds a lawyer certification from the Paris Bar Association.
Anne is a Principal and Vice President at RRS and co-leads the Global Corporate Sustainability Practice service sector. She has more than 26 years of multi-disciplinary experience working with global multi-national companies, eNGOs, and trade groups on sustainable product and packaging design and recovery issues. She recently established RRS Asia as part of her international work on packaging, solid waste and recycling. Her previous positions as founder and Executive Director of GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition and consultant at McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry have added to her expertise in life cycle assessment, sustainable product design, sustainable, packaging, recovery technologies, and sustainable materials management. Anne is currently on the Board of Directors for Keep America Beautiful, Chair of the Virginia Governor’s Council of Plastic Waste and Pollution, and a member of Verra’s Plastic Program Advisory Group.
Cathie Cocqueel, born and raised in France, Brand Design Director role at Johnson & Johnson, on a journey to "save" the world with everyday small actions
In love with Asia for the last 8 years, I see and feel how pollution is affecting not only our beautiful planet but also our health. Optimistic by nature, I believe that we all have the power to shift the direction of the global economy and making it greener.
Passionate about sustainability not an expert, I hope to inspire people with my ambition and the actions that I do.
James has over 20 years of expertise in the product and packaging design industry, developing major global innovation projects for Unilever, Mondelēz, P&G, Nestlé & Lucozade Ribena Suntory to name a few.
Yvonne is the Materials Expert in World Wide Fund For Nature Singapore (WWF-SG) in theMarket Transformation team. She has 10 years of research experience in municipal solid waste treatment and waste management. She is also trained in understanding materials and their impact to the environment. Her role in WWF-SG is to guide businesses towards sustainability, provide consultancy on the material’s impact on the environment and develop resources to help reduce our partners’ plastic consumption.
She is well versed in Materials and Environment issues, having graduated from Nanyang Technological University with a B.Eng. in Materials Engineering (2004), M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering (2007) and PhD in Environmental Engineering (2016).
Rémi is the Founder and Director of Zero Waste City. After working on several commercial and government projects towards energy efficiency in Australia, Remi is currently working on consulting and implementation projects in the Zero Waste and material resource optimisation space in Singapore. He is a certified TRUE Advisor (Total Resource Use Efficiency) by the U.S. Green Business Certification Inc. and a Zero Waste expert.
Within a span of a year and a half, he has brought ZWC to be the sector leader for packaging supporting services under the PPP (Packaging Partnership Program) – a joint initiative by the Singapore Manufacturing Federation and the National Environment Agency.
Remi is also a member of the ‘working group on sustainable packaging’ which is a joint initiative by Enterprise Singapore (ESG) and the Standards Development Organization – Singapore Chemical Industry Council (SDO@SCIC). This group aims to deliver a technical reference guideline for the qualification of sustainable packaging.
Deeply passionate about all things ‘Zero Waste’ from methodologies to technologies, you can always reach out to him for a chat!
Eric has worked in sustainability for 12 years, starting as a volunteer in 2008 with Carbon Free Consulting in Japan.
He co-founded a non-profit project, Ocean Green Association, in 2009, to study means to lower coastal water temperatures after seeing the impact on coastal ecology and bleaching of coral reefs in Japan.
Starting work with TerraCycle in 2013, he officially launched the company in Asia starting in Japan in January 2014 and subsequently became Asia Pacific Regional Manager in 2016 opening TerraCycle in China in the Fall of 2016 and TerraCycle Korea in the Fall of 2017 working with sponsors such as P&G, L’Oreal, KAO and LION. Prior to his work in sustainability, he was an international research student in law at the University of Tokyo Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, worked as legal counsel for Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, and served as an executive in the investment banking industry leading privatization and corporate finance teams.
Franciele Saorin has 17 years of experience in CGP in different segments, such as pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics. Past 10 years performed in Packaging Innovation, Research & Development in Brazil. Currently working at Boticario Group, focused on adjacent and transformational innovation projects of packaging for fragrance, makeup and personal care.
She believes sustainability is no longer a choice, but necessary for the survival of any company.
Quentin is responsible for leading the implementation of market strategies to grow the consumer packaging paperboard business in the Asia Pacific region. Quentin has been with the company for 30 years, with experience in packaging innovation, marketing, and business development. He resides in the U.S., but travels frequently to the Asia Pacific region.
Elly's work with global not-for-profit organization, Canopy, focuses on protecting the world's most precious Ancient and Endangered Forests by transforming paper packaging and viscose supply chains. She supports forward-thinking brands to find circular and Next Generation Solutions that ensure climate stability and conserved forest landscapes for people and animals, for generations to come.
Marika Knorr is the Head of Sustainability and Communication at CCL Label since April 2020 and is dedicated to grow the “Sustainable Product Family” while driving CCL’s Sustainability roadmap. Marika holds a Master‘s Degree in Art from Cologne University and Arizona State University and started her career as a newspaper and magazine writer before moving into Corporate Communications at international companies including TÜV Rheinland, LANXESS AG and Constantia Flexibles. She has held varied and senior positions in marketing and communications and has extensive experience in our industry focusing on sustainability and communication. Marika is based in Cologne, Germany.
Fabienne is Head of Marketing at PEFC International. She leads the end-users and retailers engagement programme, promoting PEFC sustainable forestry Standards for supply chain traceability assurance. Managing a team of colleagues and consultants, Fabienne ensures that companies understand the importance of PEFC’s work and are equipped to report their own progress on sustainability targets. Previously, Fabienne worked for 15 years in the consumer goods industry in various marketing roles of brand management, category development and integrated communications in the UK and Geneva. She briefly worked as a consultant for the International Trade Centre part of WTO. She graduated from Nantes University in business management and further studied marketing in London with the Chartered Institute of Marketing. In 2020, Fabienne obtained a high pass from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership for the Business Sustainability Management course.
Carlos graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. He worked in industry before moving to the United Kingdom, to do his Ph.D at the University of Cambridge. During his doctoral research and subsequently as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate, he developed the basis of the Enval process to recycle plastic aluminium laminate pouches, sachets, tubes, etc.
As a result, Carlos founded Enval where he is CEO. The Company now has a commercial plant recycling laminates in the UK and is in the process of installing further units in other locations. Enval has also started to develop recycling processes for other materials, creating a link between the packaging world and the waste handling sector.
Plastic Energy is a leader in the chemical recycling of end-of-life plastic waste. Since 2019, Ying has led Plastic Energy’s commercial and project activities in Asia, developing a pipeline across the region from the company’s Asian base in Singapore. She also holds the role of Chief Sustainability Officer and is a member of the company’s Senior Management Team with responsibility for the company’s overall sustainability strategy. Ying started her career in the British Government, where she led research in 10 Downing St and served a number of roles working in national transport and international development, and was previously Head of Asia at strategic advisory firm Global Counsel. Ying also has capital markets experience and is a CFA charter holder.
Anupam is part of TOMRA Circular Economy and feedstock Asia team, working with focus on plastic packaging resource recovery, sorting and recycling opportunities to close the loop.
Most of his prior ~16 years’ experience has been in polymers and petrochemical industry across sales, marketing, and manufacturing / operation roles. Before joining TOMRA, Anupam was working with ExxonMobil Chemical over last 12 years in various roles across India and Singapore.
Anupam is originally from Mumbai, India – chemical engineer by education. Living in Singapore for ~7 years now with his wife and 2 sons.