Congratulations to the Smithers team for a successful conference that will help accelerate and advance our collective initiatives and programs for sustainability in packaging. -Coca Cola
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Marika Knorr has been in charge of Sustainability and Communication at CCL Label since April 2020 and is dedicated to grow the “Sustainable Product Family” while driving CCL’s Sustainability roadmap. Marika holds a Master‘s Degree in Communication from Cologne University and Arizona State University and started her career as a newspaper and magazine writer before moving into Corporate Communications at international companies including TÜV Rheinland, LANXESS AG and Constantia Flexibles. She has held varied and senior positions in marketing and communications and has extensive experience focusing on sustainability and communication. Marika is based in Cologne, Germany.
Sustainability consultant based in Singapore with experience working across many of the industry’s initialisms and acronyms: CDP, GRESB, GRI, TCFD, MPR, amongst others. Previously worked in the IT services industry as an IT auditor and project manager (SOC reporting, ISAE 3402, SOX) before completing a Master's in Sustainable Development.
Maija Pohjakallio joined Metsä Group as VP, Climate and Circular Economy in August 2021. She is excited about promoting the well-being of people and the planet by combining science and business with sustainable development and a circular economy. Prior to Metsä Group Maija worked in the field of circular economy at Sulapac Ltd., VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, and the Chemical Industry Federation of Finland. She holds a doctoral degree in physical chemistry and electrochemistry from Helsinki University of Technology (currently Aalto University).
As the Founder / CEO of Plastics For Change, Andrew's role is to make it easy for brands and manufacturers to transition from virgin to recycled plastic. Plastics For Change has developed a marketplace platform that connects waste-pickers to global markets and ensures a consistent supply of high quality recycled plastic for brands. This initiative is about creating better livelihoods for the urban poor while keeping plastic out of the ocean. This year Plastics For Change launched the first and currently the only fair trade recycled plastic certified by the World Fair Trade Organization. Andrew has catalyzed several global brands and manufacturers to replace the use of virgin plastic with fair trade recycled plastic, thereby immediately improving the social and environmental impact of their products. In 2018, Andrew was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list of innovators and disruptors who are reshaping their industries and changing Asia for the better.
Patomwat Tatijarern is an application and market development executive at SCG Chemicals (SCGC), the World's leading plastic producer company in Circular Economy ranked by BloombergNEF2022. He has over 9 years of experiences working in flexible packaging industry. In recent years, Patomwat has shifted his focus on general flexible film to mono-material solutions for flexible packaging. Together with SCGC development team, mono-material packaging innovation development such as SCGC oxygen barrier coating technology have been accomplished with proven by success cases in the market. Moreover, encouraging brand owners and integrated value chain to be more sustainable with his offering initiative solutions is one of his expertise.
Angelin Yang is the Leader of Circular Economy Business, APAC (Ex-Greater China) at SABIC where she brings over 15 years of commercial experience in the petrochemical industry. Having worked with several multinational companies, Angelin has managed portfolios ranging from fossil-based polymers to recycled and bio-based polymers. She is dedicated to exploring and implementing advanced recycling technologies and strategies to reduce environmental impact while promoting economic viability. Angelin’s work involves close collaboration with local businesses and stakeholders to adapt and thrive in the evolving landscape of resource recycling. Her leadership is characterized by a deep understanding of both the challenges and potentials that define the current environmental agenda in the petrochemical sector.
Gary Calicdan is the Packaging and Print Ethical Buyer of Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics North America . Joining the company in February 2007, he has seen the business grow from 80 shops to over 250 shops. Along with growing the supply chain, Gary has led many initiatives to improve our ethics and sustainability in our packaging supply chain such as use of 100% recycled plastics and paper for all packaging and print materials . Gary has also focused on developing a local high quality recycled plastic materials supply base including Ocean plastics and created closed loop systems through retail and manufacturing operations wherever possible.
Gary is currently a council Director of The Packaging Consortium ( PAC) under Pacific Region Leadership Council based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Prior to migrating to Canada in 2006, Gary was the Purchasing Manager of ALCAN Packaging and Avon Cosmetics back in the Philippines from 2001 to early 2006.
Emily holds an B.Eng in Food Engineering and M. Eng. Studies in Packaging Technology from Massey University in New Zealand, and has 20 years’ experience working in technical, quality and operations roles in the New Zealand food industry. In her role at Fonterra she is responsible for leading strategy development and technical initiatives in the space of sustainable packaging across Fonterra’s global footprint. Her areas of focus include metrics and reporting, global portfolio review, market insight, life cycle assessment and use of recycled content.
Grace Kim is a head of global packaging R&D at CJ CheilJedang, a number one food company in Korea, where she focus es most of her time developing packaging professionals, identifying new strategic initiatives and delivering packaging solutions through breakthrough packaging innovation . She has more than 20 years of packaging industry experiences from CPG, Pharmaceutical and Chemical Companies mostly in US She relocated to Korea, her native country, with her family in 2019 to pursue her career in people management and to gain global experiences. Most recently, she was a principle engineer at AbbVie, Inc., a pharmaceutical company located in North Chicago, IL , where she successfully led multiple medical device packaging programs . Previously, she worked
at Kraft Foods, Inc. located in Glenview, IL as a strategic packaging research engineer and at DuPont in Parkersburg, WV as a R&D Process Engineer . Grace received MS degree in mechanical engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and BS degree in chemical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.
Dr Casper Durandt was a founder member of numerous Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Companies, Chairman of the PET recycling company PETCO, founder member of the Glass Recycling Company and MetPac-SA. He has a PhD in Industrial Engineering focused on coupled manufacturing efficiency improvement. He has an MBA from the University of Stellenbosch, a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Pretoria University and is a qualified Professional Engineer with the International Engineering Council.
Casper is an accomplished international speaker, has a passion for the environment and is a technical expert in the field of beverage production, supply chain, environmental issues and equipment maintenance.
Sze is the Regional Business Director responsible for sales in Greater SEA/South Asia/Australasia for Global Paperboard and Business Development in APAC within the Consumer Packaging Group focusing on innovation with integrated packaging solution working closely with major food & beverage and FMCG brand owners in the region, which include home/health and beauty (HHB) segments.
Sze has worked at WestRock for 36 years, across various business units and responsibilities.
Current responsibilities include the following –
• Innovation in the food and beverage packaging segment and more recently in business development offering enterprise wide solutions to brand owners in the region.
• WESTROCK aspires to achieve the vision to become the world’s best paper and packaging company
• Global Paperboard offer a fully integrated range of fiber based specialty materials across consumer and container mills to meet the growing demand of sustainability in packaging for brand owners
• WestRock in Singapore achieved consecutive wins toward sustainability in packaging – SINGAPORE STAR PACKAGING AWARDS in 2019, 2020 and most recently in 2022.
Before joined IPCC, Samantha was Senior Manager, Sustainability - APAC & MEA at Electrolux. She ever worked in HAVI for managing the sustainabilty packaging portfolio in APAC. HAVI is a global company focused on innovating, optimizing and managing the supply chains of leading brands.
In parallel, Samantha sits on the Packaging Partnership Program in Singapore through her role as Deputy Sector Group Leader to support the industry transition towards the nationwide EPR by 2025.
Samantha currently holds a master degree in environmental management, and has worked across a breath of sustainability industries ranging from FMCG, NGOs and consulting.
