Wrap’s boss has launched an impassioned appeal for companies to sign up to its new Packaging Pact, ahead of the full launch at the end of next month.
The Grocer revealed in November that the successor to the industry’s Plastics Pact had suffered a blow when several major companies in the war on plastic failed to join its list of launch partners, including the likes of Unilever and Coca-Cola.
However, speaking exclusively to The Grocer ahead of the hard launch in five weeks time, Wrap chairman Seb Munden said the pact would provide a unique platform for retailers, suppliers and the wider supply chain to tackle the biggest environmental and packaging challenges facing the food and drink industry.
“This is the only forum where all the right players can come together in the room to tackle the biggest issues,” said the former Unilever CEO.
“Everyone has got bits of the puzzle but the truth is we have still have big challenges ahead of us and we need to come together to work collaboratively. I don’t think there is any other platform that provides this.”
The Packaging Pact is to scrap the targets-based approach of its predecessor, the Plastics Pact, and instead have overall, “more flexible”, aims. These will include calling for a major shift to a reuse model and supporting investment in improving the recycling infrastructure for packaging.
However, some have suggested there is the a risk of duplication between the pact and the EPR system, which is geared towards shifting the industry away from hard-to-recycle plastic using taxation. Under Defra plans, it will increasingly be industry-led.
Munden, who as well as chairing Wrap is chair of the PackUK industry steering group for EPR, said he believed the issues being tackled by the new pact were far wider than the packaging tax and would allow a much broader coalition.
“The difference is the new Packaging Pact is about targeting the big interventions based on total system collaboration.
“Nobody has the answers to some of these things whether it’s the four governments, industry, all the NGOs or universities.
“The Packaging Pact is much broader than the remit of PackUK.
“It allows a much wider conversation about how we as an industry can take start to build a system that works for all the stakeholders and tackle the big challenges.
“It takes whole system change and there is a real need for collaboration and the question is can we mobilise the whole ecosystem to really drive that.
“We’ve got to assess the failures we can see the collective recycling and reprocessing system isn’t working and that’s why as far as I can see this is the only forum where all the right players can come together and figure out how we can get that working and again.”
Munden addressed fears over the cost of the pact, with sign-up ranging from £5,000 for the smaller companies, to £42,000 for large companies, which some sources have described as “eye-watering”.
He said he believed membership of the pact would drive lower costs, including bringing down the cost of EPR fees by tackling fundamental issues around packaging and in helping to simplify the data the industry issues its environmental challenges.
“One of the reasons I’m confident the packaging pact will be the place is because of that groundswell of need to rescue the complexity of the data. That’s one of the things that the pact can help drive.
“We’re very conscious of the fact that every cost has to be examined but I think these conversations are worth every penny.
“But I recognise that every penny has to be scrutinised and we’re not afraid of that.
“But when you get all the different players in the room that is also creating value.”
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