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Packaging Targets: Set and Meet Them with Plastic IQ

Packaging Targets:
Set and Meet Them with Plastic IQ

Thursday, November 17, 2022
2:00pm EDT / 11:00am PDT / 7:00pm BST / 8:00pm CEST
Sponsored By
The Recycling Partnership
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Companies across the United States have publicly announced ambitious sustainable plastic packaging targets to accomplish by 2030 or sooner, but many lack the proper resources and time to understand exactly how to get there. Simultaneously, plastic pollution leakage into the environment is a key topic across multiple sectors, including the waste industry. What will it take to reduce plastic packaging waste in the U.S., and how can brands and retailers positively influence the outcomes? Without sustainable packaging strategies to manage broad portfolios, it is difficult to weigh decisions that will result in the best environmental and economic outcomes.

Join The Recycling Partnership and esteemed panelists from Walmart, WWF, and Blue Apron to hear why more than 200 U.S. companies are using Plastic IQ, a free, customizable tool to make informed circular packaging decisions across their plastics portfolios. Supported by Walmart and co-developed with SYSTEMIQ, this open access tool allows users to compare solutions for reduction, reuse, recyclability, and compostability and assess the most impactful options for meeting packaging targets by 2025 or 2030.

Key Takeways:

  • Access the best data available for setting and meeting plastic packaging targets - for free
  • Hear from industry leaders how the tool is driving their high impact solutions
  • Connect with Walmart Project Gigaton and U.S. Plastics Pact Activator reporting
  • Prepare for U.S. policy as the landscape quickly evolves
  • Gain public recognition for commitments, if desired

Can’t join in real time? Register anyway and we’ll send you the recording!

Speakers

Rachel Kipar
Rachel Kipar
Circular Ventures Manager & Moderator
The Recycling Partnership

For more than a decade, Rachel has woven together her environmental science, natural resources management, and urban planning experience as a sustainability and climate change professional. As the Circular Ventures Manager at The Recycling Partnership, she leads Plastic IQ and strategizes across the value chain on effective packaging solutions that support and accelerate the transition to an equitable, low carbon circular economy. Combining her nonprofit, local, and state government expertise, Rachel is passionate about connecting people and ideas with solutions and science to create more resilient ecosystems and communities. She is an AmeriCorps alumnus, an active AICP certified planner with the American Planning Association, and volunteers on the N.C. Dept. of Justice Environmental Enhancement Grant Program Review Committee.

Aaron Burman
Aaron Burman
VP Data & Analytics
The Recycling Partnership

After years of modeling many types of systems, from sand flowing in streams to global supply chain networks, Aaron Burman now serves as The Recycling Partnership’s Vice President of Data and Analytics. Aaron brings more than 15 years of experience in using data and technology to build the circular economy. At the sustainability and recycling consulting firm RRS, he led the analytics team, analyzing and improving local recycling programs and working with companies on packaging strategies. Most recently he was a product manager at technology company LLamasoft, developing cloud software solutions for global supply chain optimization and analytics. At The Partnership, his efforts bring the world of machine learning and cloud computing to the data needs of the circular economy.

Gaurav Kale
Gaurav Kale
Director - Packaging Engineering
Blue Apron

Gaurav leads the packaging engineering function at Blue Apron, and is responsible for engineering design, R&D, validation, and implementation of all packaging. Gaurav oversees the development and testing of new packaging solutions including efforts to implement new sustainable materials in the Blue Apron supply chain. He is currently an executive committee member at Sustainable Packaging Coalition and has authored several peer-reviewed articles on sustainable packaging. He brings over 15 years of packaging, operations, and engineering experience, and has previously worked at Chiquita Brands, Johnson & Johnson, Genentech, and Michigan State University.

Cam Pascual
Cam Pascual
Senior Program Officer, Plastics and Material Science
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

Cam Pascual (they/them/theirs) is a Senior Program Officer on World Wildlife Fund’s Plastic and Material Science team. They work to develop transparency in companies' supply chains through leading reporting for the U.S. Plastics Pact with WWF’s plastic footprinting tool ReSource: Plastic, and support corporate partners in building out science-based material sustainability strategies that seek to eliminate negative impacts to people and nature. Previously Cam provided companies with guidance across a range of sustainability issues including greenhouse gas accounting and lifecycle assessments, and co-founded two organizations focused on waste measurement and diversion.

Aria Andrus
Aria Andrus
Senior Manager, Sustainability
Walmart

Aria Andrus is a Senior Manager of Sustainability for Walmart Stores Inc. She works with Walmart associates, suppliers, NGOs and other organizations on plastic and packaging issues. Aria is focused on helping increase the adoption of sustainable and regenerative practices in supply chains, reduce the use of virgin plastic, and accelerate Walmart’s Private Brand commitments to achieve 100% recyclable, reusable, and compostable packaging.