SPEAKERS

Toby Webb is founder of Innovation Forum, a sustainability focused research, publishing and events business. He has also been a lecturer on Corporate Responsibility at Kings College London and at Birkbeck, University of London for eight years. Webb works with large companies all over the world and sits on the sustainability advisory board for Walgreens Alliance Boots. From 2006-9 he was leading the development of UK CSR policy, resulting in the Responsibility Deals framework.
If you are interested in finding out more about Toby please click here.

Innovation in sustainable business has become one of the most significant areas of management in business today. Innovation is not just about “new ways of doing things.” Innovation is more about creating value for stakeholders in business, as well as society. In sustainable business, this value is created through innovation in everything from product safety, to design, to production, to packaging. Globally, the issue today is innovation in, among others, consumer packaging for sustainability. What does it take to innovate for sustainability? How are global companies handling the important issue of innovation and sustainability? Sustainability is the most complex of the challenges which businesses face in the 21st century. Innovation as a management paradigm in sustainability is about how companies think about complexity and turn it into business opportunity not only in Korea but worldwide.

In his role as Director of Sustainability, Ignacio Gavilan leads the CGF’s Sustainability team that aims to position the consumer goods industry as a leader in protecting against climate change and reducing waste. Ignacio is responsible for ensuring high quality, efficient strategic leadership and administrative support to CGF’s Sustainability agenda. In his role, Ignacio leads the CGF Sustainability Steering Committee and Working Groups as well as engaging with members and external stakeholders to drive implementation forward. Ignacio brings to the CGF more than 15 years’ experience in advising business on the practical, strategic, and commercial opportunities and risks of sustainability. Prior to his current role, Ignacio worked as Founder & Principal Consultant at Accipiter, a sustainability advisory service where he helped SMEs working in international markets to create strategic sustainability roadmaps. Past experience also includes senior roles at Anglo American PIC., BP Alternative Energy and McDonald’s.

Rapid economic/population growth and urbanization in developing countries are leading to ever increasing amounts of packaging and therefore waste. Many countries do not have formal integrated waste management systems, so most of the waste ends up in open dumps or waterways, leading to increasingly negative environmental/social impacts. This represents a vulnerability for the consumer products industry as it could impact long-term growth if not proactively addressed, most of this waste is “branded” so it can negatively impact brand/corporate equities, and municipalities are seeking to address their waste issues through the passage of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) taxes which, if not structured properly, can lead to increased costs to companies with questionable value in return. Alternatively, finding a path to resolving this issue, in line with the concept of the circular economy, can be an opportunity as it can contribute to economic/social development and provide value in a resource-constrained world.

Davies leads marketing & public affairs globally for NatureWorks LLC, a company formed with the mission of bringing to market a broad family of naturally advanced, renewably sourced materials. He is responsible for the company’s cradle-to-cradle strategy, including feedstocks sourcing and strategy and product recovery strategies, and for managing the company’s industry and stakeholder relations, external communications and media relations.
Davies has twice served (2011, 2014) as Industry Chair of the SPI’s Bioplastics Council, a group formed in 2009 with the mission of promoting the development of bioplastics as an integral part of the plastics industry. With the aim of establishing itself as the “go to” source for information about the North American bioplastics industry, the group works to inform and provide strategic advice to the plastics industry, federal, state and local governments, and value chain; to articulate clear and consistent descriptions of the different bioplastics options; and to promote harmonization of environmental policies.
Separately Steve has also served as co-chair of the Washington based (BIO) Biotechnology Industry Organization’s biobased products working group 2011-2013. In BIO and SPI roles, Davies was involved in formulating industry input to the US Department of Agriculture’s 2014 Farm Bill and BioPreferred program, and regularly works with industry in advocating for federal policies that promote the long term growth of the biobased products industry. He speaks regularly on behalf of SPI, and has represented the European Bioplastics Industry Association, in North America.

All stakeholders are after a solution that will benefit the bottom line while delivering on sustainable credentials. Yet many brand owners have shied away from sustainable packaging options due to perceptions about price and / or functionality.
Now, with the rapid pace of innovation in the new packaging material space, it’s time to rethink what we think we know about “sustainable packaging”. Time to reset our thinking about what sustainability means from a packaging materials perspective, including what such materials are made from, what they cost, how they work, where they work (and equally, where they don’t work).
Increasingly, stakeholder concerns are being addressed in many cases, particularly when accounting for benefits to the brand that can be accrued by adopting such innovation. It’s time for a candid discussion about sustainable packaging, what it means, what areas still need focus, and what is happening globally at a technical level that will ensure we achieve the lofty goals of genuine sustainable packaging while still benefiting the bottom line.

Jacquelyn Ottman, Green Marketing Pioneer, Speaker and Author, “The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding”.
Jacquelyn Ottman started her career learning the marketing ropes from the likes of Procter & Gamble and Ralston Purina. Then, sparked by awareness for the role of consumer goods in environmental issues, in 1989 she founded J. Ottman Consulting, Inc. and pioneered green marketing. Her goal: bring the same disciplined approach to strategy and message development, consumer insight gathering, and new product concept generation and evaluation used by the pros to the development and marketing of environmentally preferable products and services.
Over the past 24 years, Ottman and her team have applied their learning, and have learned from, over 60 Fortune 500 sustainability leaders. They have advised several ecolabels including the U.S. EPA’s Energy Star and the USDA Certified Biobased. Ottman has written four books, including “The New Rules of Green Marketing” (Berrett-Koehler, 2011), which has been named by Cambridge University (U.K) as a top 40 Sustainability book.

Jacquelyn is an expert on sustainability and marketing and she is also the author of five books including the award winning “The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding”. Maximizing the business value of one’s sustainable innovations involves reaching out to one’s consumers and other stakeholders with credible communications. Ottman will start by answering what does ‘Green Marketing’ mean and why is it necessary? She will then discuss what are the core principles behind successful green marketing? Referencing specific case studies, she will highlight the strategies companies need to use in order to draw the attention of consumers with their sustainable packaging and halo their corporate brand.

Steve Duckworth is the Managing Director of ERM Korea Ltd. Steve has over 30 years’ experience in Waste and Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) management in Europe and Asia. He is a Chartered Waste Manager with the United Kingdom’s Institute of Wastes Management. Steve has been advising International and Asian based corporations in Asia for some 22 years on sustainable approaches to managing their EHS risks both in new facility development and in their existing ongoing operations. He has had in country experience of consulting projects throughout Asia including Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia.

Joung, Soon-hee is a professor in the Dept. of Consumer Studies, Ewha Womans University and President elect of the Korean Society of Consumer Studies. She is also Vice President of the Korean Society of Consumer Policy and Education, the Korean Consumption Culture Association and the Korean Academy of Financial Consumers. Professor Joung is working as a researcher and a consultant in the Sustainable Production and Consumption Institute, Korea Consumer Agency, Green Consumer Network in Korea, Korean Association of Consumer Professionals amongst others. Her research areas are Ethics Production and Consumption, Consumer Choice and Energy Efficiency, Consumer Sovereignty, Qualitative Analysis on Consumer Safety Policy.

Park, Su-il is a professor in the Dept. of Packaging, Yonsei University and Secretary of Scientific Affairs, Korea Society of Packaging Science & Technology. Previously he was a member of various government committees such as the Prime Minister’s Food Safety Policy Committee. His research fields include the developments of value added eco-friendly materials for packaging applications, eco design for packaging waste reduction, packaging integrity and shelf life evaluation. He has published more than 30 research papers on packaging materials and design and presented more than 30 topics relating to the above research fields.