Paul Curtis - Executive Director

I’ve always taken pride in the fact that the Packaging Council is a proactive organisation and this year has been no exception

In 2008, we launched our Purpose, Values and ‘Vision to 2012’ statements and in October 2010, the whole Executive Committee (board) met to undertake a strategic review exercise to determine how well we are progressing towards our goals.  In December 2010 the Executive Committee agreed on clearer, more tightly defined Purpose, Values and ‘Vision to 2012’ statements, which are set out on the inside front cover of this annual report.  The outcome of the review effectively says that we can’t be all things to all people and that our core business is to assist our members minimise the environmental impact of packaging by championing cost effective, sustainable solutions and product stewardship.

This clear direction helped define our work programme for the year.  We held the first seminar on our Packaging Product Stewardship Scheme in November 2010, covering ‘the why, the what and the how’ of the scheme.  Through extensive consultation with our members we understood that, after talking about the scheme at a high level for so long throughout its development, what you wanted was the detail.  With that in mind we took a different approach to our normal ‘presentation’ based seminars and ran this first event more as a taught workshop in collaboration with the Manukau Institute of Technology in Auckland.  The feedback on this approach was so positive that we decided to run the first workshop on our new Code of Practice for Packaging Design, Education and Procurement in a similar fashion. 

We have been very encouraged by the rate of uptake of our Packaging Product Stewardship Scheme, which had 17 members at the time of going to press.  The first half of 2011 has also seen the Packaging Council begin to engage more widely with our stakeholders to educate them about the scheme and we have a communications plan in place to take the scheme to the larger councils and community recycling groups.  The purpose of these conversations is to explain the overall intent and scope of the scheme, share with the them the scheme’s ‘Complaints and Suggested Improvements Process’ and identify potential areas for collaboration.

Our Member Briefing Lunches, held three times a year in Auckland and Wellington, continued to be popular.  At the March Member Briefing Lunches, TechNZ were invited to talk about the Government’s Research and Development grants.  This was the first time we had invited outside speakers to present at the Member Briefings and the feedback was so positive we have decided to change the format of future briefing lunches to include outside speakers more regularly. 

We have also continued to work hard on cultivating key strategic relationships for the benefit of our members.  I continue to represent our member’s interests on Scion’s Functional Food Packaging Industry Advisory Group to ensure their research is aligned with industry’s needs and market changes.

The biggest change in New Zealand’s science and innovation system in 20 years will take effect from the 1st July 2011.  Over the last year, New Zealand’s eight Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) have been working with their clients, and stakeholders to put into place the recommendations of the Government’s 2010 CRI Taskforce.  I have been closely involved in the development of Scion’s Science and Innovation Framework, from a packaging perspective, and I’m delighted that their high level key performance indicators include an outcome to develop new bio-based packaging solutions.

Our Environment Manager, Sharon Jereb, Chairs Plastics New Zealand’s Degradable Plastics Working Group.  The primary focus of this group is to assist in the dissemination of information about degradable plastics, to address the state of confusion in the marketplace over what plastic is appropriate to use and whether the enhanced environmental performance claims can be realised, particularly the ability to manage end of life options which are limited to recycling, composting, energy recovery or landfill. This issue has become particularly elevated as jurisdictions around the world are focussing on ‘green claims’ and companies found to be extolling ‘environmental benefits’ based on technical qualities, overlooking the facts that those technical qualities cannot be realised in a ‘real-life’ sense, run the risk of falling foul of  commerce related legislation.

The Packaging Council continued to keep a close eye on the legislative and policy landscape and the Executive Committee has, over the last year, discussed the implementation of the Waste Minimisation Act, the Environmental Protection Authority Bill, the Consumer Law Reform and the Government’s Green Growth Initiative.

In November we held our annual Ambrose Rules golf tournament at Muriwai Golf Club, West Auckland and proved to be as popular as ever with 20 teams playing and many of our members using the opportunity to form teams with their customers and suppliers.

Paul Curtis
Executive Director

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TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

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