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Agenda

The 2024 program will be announced soon! In the meantime, take a look at the 2023 speakers and agenda.

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Please click on the dates below to see each day's program.
Registration and Exhibit Hall Opens
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Brittany Onslow | Head of Events, Americas, Smithers
Session I: Market Overview – Trends and Current State of the Industry
The Impact of E-Commerce on Packaging: Long-term Forecasts to 2029
Session II: Differences in Design
Boxes and Bags, and Loop, Oh My!
Toto, we’re not just in stores anymore! Join Brent as he skips down the yellow brick road toward the wonderful world of e-commerce packaging. He’ll pull the curtain back and look at recent Amazon practices updates, direct-to-consumer models and the growing trend of reusable packaging. There’s no place like Packaging!
Brent Lindberg | Head of Curiosity & Founder, Fuseneo
Networking Break
Panel: Retailers Discuss Designing for eCommerce
Leading Retailers will discuss how their supply chain and CPGs can support them in complex packaging design challenges. Topics discussed:  
  • To what extent is e-com front and center in your packaging development?
  • How much consideration is given to branding as you are developing your secondary packaging?
  • How can CPGs better support Retailers in this space?
  • Factors in Secondary package material/design selection, specific to e-commerce
  • Minimizing footprint needed for warehouse storage
  • Protective value
  • End consumer/unboxing experience
  • Fulfillment velocity
Moderator: Shelly Nirvelli | Vice President of Business Development, Packaging, DHL Supply Chain

Panelists Include:​
Panel: CPGs Discuss Designing for eCommerce
Leading CPGs will discuss how their supply chain and retailers can support them in complex packaging design challenges. Topics discussed:  
  • To what extent is e-com front and center in your packaging development?
  • How much consideration is given to branding as you are developing your secondary packaging?
  • How can Retailers better support CPGs in this space?
  • Factors in Secondary package material/design selection, specific to e-commerce
  • Minimizing footprint needed for warehouse storage
  • Protective value
  • End consumer/unboxing experience
  • Fulfillment velocity
Panelists Include:
How Fit for Purpose Packaging Creates Sustainable E-Commerce Solutions
The concept of fit for purpose packaging is crucial in the e-commerce space. The outer box should be strong and durable, so it can withstand turbulent transportation while protecting the products inside. Corrugated packaging made from recycled fiber is a practical, sustainable fit for purpose solution to the outer box. The packaging used for the products inside the outer box has a different purpose. That packaging should be made from high quality fibers with excellent printability, so that when the consumer opens the outer box revealing what’s inside, a connection is established. Paperboard packaging made from virgin fiber is a practical, sustainable fit for purpose solution to packaging inside the outer box.
Nate Pajka | Sustainability Manager, Metsä Board Americas
Lunch Break
Session III: Sustainability and Recycling
Sustainability in Food Packaging: Regulatory and Supply-Chain Developments and Considerations
This presentation will discuss the latest regulatory developments related to compositional compliance, recycling claims, and other hot topics for food and beverage packaging, including: FDA regulation of recycled materials, green and recycling claims, chemicals of concern, and consumer deselection.
Daniel Rubenstein | Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Networking Break
Session IV: Reuse, Refill and Retailer Updates
Panel: Reuse – How can we build circularity?
Do we build a new infrastructure? What is the policy support? What are the consumer trends, LCAs and data when it comes to reuse?

Panelists Include:
Panel: D2C Rundown
This panel will feature e-tailers who will give an update on their e-commerce and sustainability progress, address reuse and refill for their customers and more. The updates will conclude with a Q&A session with the audience. 

Moderator: Brent Lindberg | Head of Curiosity & Founder, Fuseneo

Panelists Include:
Innovations Through the Supply Chain Power Hour
< Session Description >
Companies will take 10 minutes to pitch novel packaging solutions that can benefit the packaging industry for e-commerce. This session will feature reuse and refill, tapes and adhesives, paper and plastic options, alternative fibers, meal delivery kits and more.
Optimizing E-commerce Packaging: Exploring innovative technologies and adhesive solutions to address the accelerated growth rate of sustainable e-commerce packaging
In today's fast-paced world, the demand for efficient and sustainable packaging solutions has become paramount. The rapid growth of e-commerce has presented unique challenges for businesses, particularly in terms of packaging optimization and reducing environmental impact.
Join us to gain valuable insights from Robatech and HB Fuller and discover how their cutting-edge solutions can revolutionize your packaging.
Brian Sufak | Service and Sales Manager – Western USA, Robatech
Tania Montesi | Global E-Commerce Manager, H.B. Fuller
Mushroom Packaging and a reimagined supply chain
The growth of both ecommerce and retail sales is leading to much higher volumes of single-use plastic packaging. But single use doesn't have to mean adding to landfills. Working with nature makes it possible to transform the packaging supply chain from one that is linear and wasteful to one that is more localized and circular — Mushroom  Packaging is doing just that.
 
We grow packaging from mycelium, the 'roots' of mushrooms, to create protective packaging that is durable, lightweight, customizable, and totally home-compostable. At the end of their use, instead of going into the garbage, our packaging can be safely broken up and added to the garden. After a number of days, it converts back into soil-nourishing compost. By mixing mycelium with plant fibers like kenaf and hemp stalks, we grow parts in ambient temperatures and without extrusion, requiring far less energy than EPS and other petroleum-based methods. Crucially, low-value leftovers of agriculture that would otherwise be burned or thrown away are valorized into higher value products that ultimately become soil that supports further plant growth. Packaging that plays a positive, circular role in the ecosystem, while also providing right-sized parts that perform to the highest protective standards.
 
In this talk, I'll introduce mycelium as a material, how we make Mushroom Packaging, and how distributed production based around regional agriculture can meet growing demand while creating supply chains that are more robust, and which actually benefit the planet.
Meghan Olson | Director of Commercialization, Ecovative – Mushroom Packaging
Quit Cardboard with LimeLoop's Smart Reusable Packaging
What if I told you you can make your bottom-line more economical, your operations more efficient, and your carbon footprint more environmentally friendly? With reusable packaging, powered by smart technology, you can say goodbye to single-use packaging in your supply chain forever.
Chantal Emmanuel | CTO, Co-Founder, LimeLoop
Smart, Secure & Reusable Parcels for Last Mile Delivery
Explore the benefits of smart and secure parcels for customers, shippers and couriers for today and the future.  How smart & secure packaging is the missing link for the future of automated delivery of goods. 
David Ruth | Founder & CEO, Motogo, LLC
Making Packaging Circular
Most public discourse around packaging centers on end-of-life issues - landfill diversion, recyclability, compostability, marine plastic pollution, etc.
But true packaging circularity is a much bigger vision. It’s about using as few materials as possible, making packaging out of waste or regenerative source material, designing for reuse, and making packaging readily recyclable. Achieving this vision requires companies to collaborate within and across sectors and to take risks on untested but promising new technology.
During this session, we’ll talk through three packaging circularity innovations fueled by these types of investments and collaboration:
  • Paper packaging made from agricultural waste
  • Black Algae Ink™
  • Reusable mailers for eco-friendlier reverse logistics        

Saloni Doshi | CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer, EcoEnclose
Networking Reception
Registration and Exhibit Hall Opens
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Session V: Consumer Behavior – How is packaging influencing consumer behavior?
How Packaging is Influencing Consumer Behavior
Session VI: Use of branding – catching the customer eye and promoting your brand
The CX Gap Brands and (R)etailers Have Overlooked
In the world of big advertising, always-on media, digital optimization, and obsession with CX an important part of every eCommerce journey has been overlooked…CORRUGATED ECOMMERCE PACKAGING!!! In an effort to understand the most compelling benefits of and biggest barriers to adopting improved eCommerce corrugated packaging as a brand engagement strategy, EFI commissioned qualitative and quantitative research projects targeting companies ranging from brands, retailers, agencies, and 3PLs. The session will discuss EFI findings from this research project and how well-branded corrugated eCommerce packaging unlocks new possibilities for brands and retailers to elevate perception, stand out, and stay top of mind.
Kerry Sanders | VP Market Development, EFI
Networking Break
Sponsored by EFI
Session VII: Logistics and Supply Chain
Strive Towards Cost & Sustainability Goals with Confidence 
The rapid rise of online shopping has been well documented, and the pandemic related challenges of the recent past and today have only served to accelerate growth in the space. But as ecommerce grows in stature, so do the challenges of designing packaging suitable for this rapidly evolving supply chain. This presentation will explore how retail transportation challenges continue to change, what it means for designing packaging for transit, how ISTA is using research to try to stay ahead of the curve, and how it will take a joint effort from our packaging community to keep pace. Gain insights on all the new resources ISTA is developing that will help you and your company design effective packaging that minimizes product damage and optimizes resource usage.  
Eric Hiser | Vice President of Standards & Certification  , International Safe Transit Association (ISTA)
Lunch Break
Fireside Chat: How are Retailers Optimizing their Supply Chains?
This panel will address fulfillment challenges, supply chain, packaging challenges, optimizing last mile delivery and more.

Panelists Include:
Session VIII: Circular Economy and Regulatory Updates
Designing packaging to Accelerate a Circular Economy
Many companies are making good-faith efforts with ambitious targets to improve their sustainability, and that of the products they make for their customers.
At DS Smith, our “Now and Next’ sustainability strategy is our guide, enabling us to actively create sustainable, 100% recyclable products like GreenChute and GreenTote, to remove plastics from the retail environment and landfills in the “Now,” giving customers real, eco-friendly packaging choices impact their ESG goals.
Looking ahead to the “Next,” we apply proprietary technologies like our Circular Design Metrics to analyze and specify clear ways to improve the sustainability and performance of packaging and quantify our customer’s carbon footprint.
In this session, Allison Berg of DS Smith will share how DS Smith’s “Now and Next” solutions deliver industry-leading sustainability strategies, science-based targets and product innovation that clearly show how fiber-based solutions are our best option as the renewable, reusable, and recyclable resource for e-tailers looking to reduce their use of fossil-fuel-based plastics.
To demonstrate the sustainability of these solutions, Allison will use DS Smith’s Circular Design Metrics, developed in collaboration with the Ellen McArthur Foundation, to measure the environmental impact of this type of packaging before and after the latest innovative redesign.
Allison Berg | Sustainability Manager, DS Smith
Session IX: What does e-commerce need to succeed for the consumer and the industry in the future?
< Session Description >
How will package design change to meet consumer demands, trends and innovation with materials? Sustainability and environmental impact will change the way we design and package products – so what does this mean for the e-commerce industry?
Closing Keynote: An Improved Packaging Design for Google
Closing Remarks