The 59th Annual Members Meeting of NVC Netherlands Packaging Center took place on November 24 at NVC member company Kompak in Etten-Leur, the Netherlands.

At this annual occasion, Peter van der Knaap, Chairman of the association which specializes in information services, education and training and serving the interests of the packaging community, delivered a keynote lecture titled "Sustainable development in the packaging of products - from Eco to Ego?". In his speech, he replaced the three P's of sustainable development (Planet, People and Profit) by three E's: Eco, Ego and Euro, referring to the environment, mankind and financial factors respectively.

According to him, financial considerations (Euro) are very important as boundary condition, yet they are not very well suited for the definition of sustainability goals due to their high volatility.

Environmental aspects (Eco) must be integrated in the business decisions where applicable and most certainly where the packaging of products is involved. NVC defines packaging as the activity of temporarily integrating an external function and a product to enable the use of the product. Per definition this results in an empty package after the use of the product, which must be responsibly handled afterwards. So even at the onset of the design of the package and the product these effects must be taken into consideration.

What remains is the most important sustainability factor of them all: mankind itself (Ego, People), which, according to NVC, addresses the professionals in companies and research or government institutions who are involved in the activity of packaging. This involvement can be at the level of the NVC Course Programmes in Packaging, followed by more than 500 students working at more than 200 companies now. However, also employees from other disciplines (product specialists, logistics and distribution, design, manufacturing) should be continuously educated and trained while having access to the necessary information on new packaging developments.

Mr van der Knaap said, "Without well educated, trained and informed employees there is no innovation and without innovation there will be no sustainable development in the packaging of products."

The 59th Annual Members Meeting of NVC Netherlands Packaging Center took place on November 24 at NVC member company Kompak in Etten-Leur, the Netherlands.

At this annual occasion, Peter van der Knaap, Chairman of the association which specializes in information services, education and training and serving the interests of the packaging community, delivered a keynote lecture titled "Sustainable development in the packaging of products - from Eco to Ego?". In his speech, he replaced the three P's of sustainable development (Planet, People and Profit) by three E's: Eco, Ego and Euro, referring to the environment, mankind and financial factors respectively.

According to him, financial considerations (Euro) are very important as boundary condition, yet they are not very well suited for the definition of sustainability goals due to their high volatility.

Environmental aspects (Eco) must be integrated in the business decisions where applicable and most certainly where the packaging of products is involved. NVC defines packaging as the activity of temporarily integrating an external function and a product to enable the use of the product. Per definition this results in an empty package after the use of the product, which must be responsibly handled afterwards. So even at the onset of the design of the package and the product these effects must be taken into consideration.

What remains is the most important sustainability factor of them all: mankind itself (Ego, People), which, according to NVC, addresses the professionals in companies and research or government institutions who are involved in the activity of packaging. This involvement can be at the level of the NVC Course Programmes in Packaging, followed by more than 500 students working at more than 200 companies now. However, also employees from other disciplines (product specialists, logistics and distribution, design, manufacturing) should be continuously educated and trained while having access to the necessary information on new packaging developments.

Mr van der Knaap said, "Without well educated, trained and informed employees there is no innovation and without innovation there will be no sustainable development in the packaging of products."