Mark Brosnan - President

For most of the 27 years that I have been part of the grocery industry, packaging has been chosen to protect and preserve products from production to consumption.

For marketeers, packaging provides an opportunity to inform and to make your brand stand out on the supermarket shelf.But packaging is now an integral part of every company’s environmental image. It tells a story about how committed we are as businesses to reducing the impact which we have on the planet.

How the depth of that commitment is viewed from the Beehive is becoming increasingly important as the two main parties come closer together with their environmental policies.

It seems inevitable that we will have an emissions trading scheme and it is highly likely that the Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill will be enacted before the end of 2008. This Bill contains provisions for economic instruments such as a waste disposal levy (tax) take-back services, fees and refundable deposits.

Our role is to continue strongly supporting voluntary product stewardship to achieve sustainable environmental benefits at best cost.Through its submissions and face to face meetings, the Packaging Council has worked extremely hard to make the MPs considering this Bill aware of the huge progress we have made under the New Zealand Packaging Accord.

We now have a packaging recycling rate of 57% which is up there with the rest of the world and represents a 20% increase on our 2005 recovery rate. To put this in perspective, this increase equates to an annual saving of around 33,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide or taking approximately 8000 cars off the road.So I would like to thank everyone who has helped us achieve the 57% recycling result.

With this momentum, we can show the rest of the world that a voluntary model works best. The New Zealand Packaging Accord is successful because it is a partnership between all sectors of the packaging and recycling industry and brings in local and central government.

However, as the political landscape changes, so we as an organisation must change or risk becoming out of touch with the needs of our members and overlooked by the regulators. We knew that we must be able to clearly articulate who we are, what we stand for and what we aim to achieve.

To that end, the Executive Committee undertook a strategic review of the Packaging Council and our new purpose, values and ‘Vision to 2012’ statement are included in this report. Our new positioning statement encapsulates this clear vision very succinctly: PAC.NZ – Towards Sustainable Packaging.

Many businesses are searching for support and a clear role for the Packaging Council will be to help make sustainability real for your business. Many organizations are now asking what can they do, what tools are available, what is everyone else doing, and how can they benchmark themselves? If you are asking these questions, I encourage you to talk to the Packaging Council staff. They are a great source not just of information but also of support. They can help you leverage their networks to best effect and advise you on the key steps to making sustainability real for your business:

• Getting commitment from your leadership

• Getting the key people together

• Looking at your design processes

• Evaluating your logistics

• Collecting and reporting site waste and recycling data

• Communicating your successes

I would like to thank the Executive Committee and the staff of PAC.NZ for all their support and energy. I am looking forward to announcing even better recycling rates at the end of Year Four and to successfully negotiating a third Accord.

President
Mark Brosnan

Regional Manager

Progressive Enterprises Ltd

Woolworths Ltd, Progressive Enterprises Limited parent company, aims to move to a leadership position on sustainability. Our group wide Sustainability Strategy for 2007-2015 sets out our major commitments and targets:

• 40% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2015 from facilities

• 200 million litres of water to be saved

• 3.4 million reusable crates to replace single use wax boxes

• Zero waste in general stream by 2015

• 25% reduction in CO2 per carton delivered by 2012

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TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING

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