Summit Media Group’s Greener Package™ and the Institute for Sustainability, a technological community of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), have announced plans for Sustainable Packaging Symposium 2012—Advancing Sustainable Supply Chains with Optimized Packaging. This event, slated for April 3-5, at the Hilton Americas in Houston, TX, will examine the pivotal role of optimized packaging in helping to create more sustainable supply chains. Co-chairing this year’s program committee is Meghan Stasz, director of Sustainability for the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
Co-produced by AIChE and Greener Package, this annual event will bring scientists and engineers with cross-industry expertise in sustainability together with packaging professionals looking for real-world solutions. This year’s event looks at optimized packaging as an essential component of a more sustainable supply chain. Presentations will cover the value proposition for the optimized package; data and analysis measurement tools, including total cost assessment (TCA); reducing retailer food waste; the key attributes that define a sustainable package; the technical underpinnings essential to sustainable package designs; and other relevant topics.
“Now more than ever before, optimized packaging is taking center stage as a key driver of the sustainable product supply chain,” says Christine Smallwood, Greener Package director of business development. “Although packaging typically represents less than ten percent of the overall product environmental footprint, when optimized, packaging plays a disproportionately high role in positively influencing overall product environmental outcomes.”
Adds Stasz, “The optimized package can play a significant role in the reduction of product waste, and this is of key importance to brand owners and retailers.”
Darlene Schuster, executive director of the IfS, emphasized that the symposium will again offer program information of interest to sustainability and packaging professionals employed by raw materials manufacturers, brand owners, converters, suppliers, and retail professionals, as well as the engineers and scientists who implement sustainable solutions. “There is a real need to apply technically sound, robust best practices to develop functional, sustainable supply chains for products and their packaging,” she says. “Packaging is a critical value for the product supply chain, and the knowledge shared at this conference should lead to better decision-making.”
This year’s event will feature two days of programming, including keynote presentations, technical sessions, panel discussions, tabletop exhibits, and ample time for networking. The first edition of this event, Sustainable Packaging Symposium 2011, drew more than 200 attendees.
