FEFCO welcomed 250 participants at its Summit in Amsterdam (18-20 May), at this occasion the association celebrated its 70 years anniversary. The conference programme was built around sustainability and carbon neutrality from the policy makers, industry, NGO, and retailers’ perspective.
Fady Gemayel, FEFCO President opened the Summit, ‘Fit for the Future,’ which addressed important issues notably the Green Deal and climate neutrality while putting forward the virtues of our product.
Dirk Ockerman, the President of the corrugated Benelux association (CBA), the hosting country, kicked off the conference. Climate neutrality and sustainability matters have been addressed by Ilkka Leppävuori (Bain & Company). Then Alex Manisty, Chairman of FEFCO climate neutrality steering committee presented FEFCO’s project and shared the first results of the carbon neutrality roadmap, he said “We believe that the corrugated industry can reduce its footprint by 30% by 2030 and can reach net zero by 2050 if the whole supply chain works together”. The session continued with several examples of the climate and sustainability work from the sector by Maija Pohjakallio (Metsä Group) who shared the company’s vision for circular and collaborative fibre-based innovations, and by Flavio Deganutti (Klabin in Brazil) who described how the industry can build for the future, from sustainable forests to packaging.
Speakers from retail shared their views on sustainability where Marion Beugelsdijk (Albert Heijn) underlined amongst others the need to address over-packaging, reuse, recyclability, and the need of high recycled content. Sara Lone (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences) shared recent data and e-commerce market development trends and some useful insights on European consumer behaviours as well as their expectations regarding sustainable packaging.
View the full FEFCO Press Release here.