Paul Curtis - Executive Director

Firstly, I would like to say thank you to our members for your support over the last year. You don’t need me to tell you what a tough year it’s been, with New Zealand experiencing its longest recession for at least 30 years. When we set our budget for the year ending 30th March 2010, we planned for the worst and budgeted accordingly, setting very tight discretionary spend limits. This required us to do things differently.

We limited the chargeable events we organised to just our 2009 Environmental Packaging Awards presentation evening and our annual golf tournament and instead we put our efforts into meetings where we could engage in open dialogue with our members, particularly about the development of our Packaging Product Stewardship Scheme and Code of Practice for Packaging Design, Education and Procurement.

By the end of the financial year, we had not experienced a significant drop-off in membership and in fact, those resignations we did receive were more than matched by new members joining PAC.NZ. We’ve emerged from the recession in good shape financially and with a much better understanding of our members wants and needs.

Our in-house member briefing lunches in Auckland and Wellington have been well enough attended to suggest that you like these small ‘focus group’ sessions and we will continue to put these on in 2010-2011. We will also keep the costs at a minimum for any chargeable workshops or seminars that we organise during the year.

We finally launched our packaging product stewardship scheme on the 22nd April at a half day seminar in Auckland, attended by about 60 people from 45 member companies. This has been the culmination of 18 months work, during which time we held two public meetings (February & July 2009), a formal written consultation round and several member briefing sessions. So thank you again for your patience, perseverance, but most of all for your input and your support.

It has always been PAC.NZ’s goal to have a scheme capable of being accredited by the Ministry for the Environment under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008. PAC.NZ’s Executive Committee firmly believes that this approach provides the best protection to members against regulations specifically targeting packaging and packaging waste.

The Ministry for the Environment have been our partners during the development of the scheme and they have given positive signals that the scheme’s goal, scope and objectives are in line with the requirements for accreditation. However, to be in a position to apply for accreditation, the scheme requires a critical mass of PAC.NZ members to join the scheme and report against the scheme’s policies, procedures and key performance indicators.

We are very excited about our new Code of Practice for Packaging Design, Education and Procurement. While the Code supports the packaging product stewardship scheme, its scope is much broader than the scheme. Given its comprehensive nature, it is anticipated that the Code will be used extensively by member companies wanting to build general knowledge within their organisation on the environmental issues surrounding packaging and packaging waste in New Zealand and as a sustainable procurement guide by companies wishing to introduce terms of trade around the Code’s key principles.

With the end of the Packaging Accord we’ve been able to focus on the services we offer to our members and in October 2009 we launched our new bimonthly e-newsletter Packaged Up. Comments to date have been very positive. An important aspect of the newsletter is promoting our members, so please send us your business opportunities and case studies.

During the year we tried hard to provide some light relief and networking opportunities for members. Genevieve Westcott was the guest speaker at our 2009 Annual General Meeting. Genevieve was the 2008 winner of the People’s Choice Award for Best Professional Speaker and gave a fun, but insightful, interactive presentation on the art of effective communication.

After a decade since we started our bi-annual Environmental Packaging Awards we took the decision to update the 10 categories to reflect the shift towards assessing the environmental impacts of packaging across the whole supply chain, rather than just looking at recyclability as the primary environmental measure. Comedian Mike King was the perfect Master of Ceremonies for our revamped Awards at the presentation gala dinner in September.

In November we held our annual Ambrose Rules golf tournament at Muriwai Golf Club, West Auckland, which was a great success with 22 teams registered to play and many of our members using the opportunity to form teams with their customers and suppliers.

Our Awards and golf tournament would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors. We would like to take the opportunity to thank all our companies who provided sponsorship over the year, without which many of our events would not be possible.

To round off a very successful year, our President David Carter has been appointed by the Minister for the Environment to the Waste Advisory Board, which provides independent advice to the Minister on issues relating to waste minimisation under the Waste Minimisation Act. In my opinion, David’s appointment validates what the Minister has said all along, that he would prefer industry to develop its own voluntary product stewardship schemes and also that our efforts to date have not gone unrecognised.

Thank you again for your support and I look forward to engaging with you as we roll out our Packaging Product Stewardship Scheme and our new Code of Practice.

Paul Curtis
Executive Director

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TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

77 Greenmount Drive, East Tamaki, Manukau 2013
PO Box 58899, Botany, Manukau 2163
PHONE 09 271 4044, FAX 09 271 4041
EMAIL: pac.nz@packaging.org.nz