Sustainability all told

Present and future of cellulose-based packaging: reflections and proposals from largescale retail concerns and the Paper & Board Club (Comieco). With an eye to sustainability and a mind to Expo 2015.

No one should leave Milan without a box with something good and beautiful of Italy in it… A container for products and mementos of an unforgettable event like the Expo (crucial for the revival of Italy’s image and economy). A cardboard box, of course: sturdy, with the Universal Expo logo printed in color, to be found anywhere right from ones arrival at the airport.
This the nice, simple and concrete idea launched by Henkel Italia
packaging manager Giuseppe Scicchitano on November 27th, at the end of the meeting organized by Comieco’s Paper & Board Club at Milan’s Civic Aquariam (symbolic, location already feted in the previous Milanese Expo in 1906).
An idea applauded by the public and welcomed by Piero Attoma (Consortium vicepresident and club coordinator) and by Eliana Farotto who, at the round table organised to discuss eco-compatibility with the virtuous representatives of the industry and distribution, represented the cellulose based packaging producers.
This occurred at the end of a meeting where Henkel and Auchan’s spokesmen reasoned on “green” policies and how they are declined by enterprises, but also on the obstacles that arise from differences in culture and sensitivity, and the often confused ideas of the consumers.
One then went on to packaging user demands, who from the suppliers demand proactivity in face of the disparity of tools and company commitment, and the need for R&D that starts from consumer needs and sensitivity (where the intent is not to trade “nature” with “quality”, but to include both).
And lastly, the discussion was on the future prospects of the paper industry in terms of sustainability, with particular attention to the opportunities offered by Expo. And this brings us back to the box which we spoke of earlier.
 
Prospects. Protagonists of the roundtable were Giuseppe Scicchitano and Diego Restelli (Auchan packaging head) who offered a myriad of insights to an audience of producer and user concerns, experts and operators in various ways involved in Comieco’s projects.
Like Alessio Stefanini, representative of CNA and Federmoda, who is working with the Consortium to create a packaging capable of transmitting ethical values and the quality of high end Italian craftsmanship (a quality that is synonymous with naturalness), rendered with design immediacy.
In the background, often unexpressed, the prospects of a sector in a delicate balance between the demand for lightening the weight of packaging and growth targets that necessarily go by way of an increase in production.
A dynamic balance hence, but positive, as Henkel’s packaging manager indicated: one just has to think of the growth of e-commerce and hence the delivery of products directly to the consumer’s doorstep. Packaged products, it goes without
saying.                                                 

An “inclusive” Club The Paper and Board club was founded in March 2012 by Comieco, with the objective of starting up a privileged dialogue with packaging users, to pinpoint views, demands, criticisms and projects useful for stimulating an inter-chain dialogue. Open to all and free (you only have to fill in the clubcartaecartoni.org online form), at the end of 2013 the club had over 160 members and a series of projects already underway, between guided visits to facilitie, local encounters, technical tables for favoring the sharing of experiences… Arguably the two most important undertakings are “the paper & board packaging ID card” (format for the summarised transmission of the environmental characteristics of the packaging at the moment it is handed over to the customer), and the “white paper”, that offers a compendium of all the suggestions made by users to cellulose based packaging producers, systematized in two Papers, respectively dedicated to brand owners and largescale retail.