Pack to the Future Event 2026 was the ‘best ever’ say Delegates.
This year’s Pack to the Future event, the 14th in a series of seminars run by the Midlands Packaging Society, was held again at Loughborough University on July the 22nd 2026.
Nearly 100 delegates gathered at the university to explore the topic ‘Sustainable Packaging: is it all it’s cracked up to be?’ A full day’s programme delivered eight presentations, all of which were designed to explore the various aspects of sustainability in the packaging environment.
Opening the conference, our Committee Member Liam Barbary introduced the Keynote speaker James Piper who is the author of ‘The Rubbish Book’ and creator and Co-host of the well-respected Talking Rubbish podcast. With some 100 pods delivered over the last few years, many of us in the packaging industry will be familiar with these informative and often humous broadcasts that deal with the important issues of circularity and sustainability in the packaging industry. James’s message was that sustainable packaging needs to be built into a brand’s DNA to avoid greenwashing wherever possible.
Adam Herriot of WRAP continued the theme highlighting the importance of understanding and measuring the data surrounding the topic in an effort to ensure that everybody involved in sustainability communicates using the same metrics and performance indicators.
Dr. Adam Read MBE from SUEZ UK delivered the message from a waste management point of view. His take on the future of the industry was that it needed more source segregation and more mono-stream management. Materials recycling facilities need to be re-aligned, and energy-from-waste feedstocks needs more scrutiny.
Lianne Pemberton of Smurfit Westrock agrees with Adam and went on to explore the trade-offs between reductions in packaging and food waste, light weighting and product protection and how legislation can drive the wrong behaviours.
Loughborough University’s Dr. Nikki Clark highlighted the importance of training in an industry that is finding it hard to attract suitable new talent in the form of well-rounded technologists and Adam Robinson of Paranova Print & Packaging looked at how brands are often responsible for poor outcomes when it comes to designing sustainable packaging because they often insist on designs and materials that are incompatible with circularity objectives. Packaging companies are often blamed for poor performance when they often are not at fault.
Robinson Packaging’s Jamie Riley asked ‘Which is the most sustainable packaging material; plastic, glass, paper, steel, or aluminium? He went on to explain that there is no perfect packaging material. The most sustainable packaging solution is the one that delivers the lowest overall environmental impact while still fulfilling its intended purpose.
A message that flowed all through the conference speakers’ presentations. ‘Where you have a choice, you have a responsibility’
Anna Roberts of INTERU rounded off the proceedings by updating the audience with the latest changes to the European Commission’s EUDR regulations on deforestation and how they affect the UK Packaging Industry.
The Committee of The Midlands Packaging Society would like to thank the University and particularly Dr Nikki Clark for their organisational support and the venue, along with the speakers and the delegates for their attendance. They very much look forward to what will be the 15th Pack to the Future in 2027.