1. Could you sum up briefly in what consists your occupation and EUROPEN activities?

Hello, my name is Francesca Stevens and I am the managing director of EUROPEN, the European organization for packaging. EUROPEN embodies the entire packaging value chain, with currently 68 member organizations including raw material producers, packaging manufacturers, and the brands that use it. EUROPEN was created in 1993, nearly 30 years ago, when the first European directive came out on packaging and packaging waste management as well as the advent of the single European market.

You work actively with the European Commission to review directives that are related to waste and packaging. Could you precise which are the stakes of this regulatory progress and which are the opportunities for the different players of the economy?

Reviewing the Plastic Packaging and Waste Directive (PPWD) and the Waste Framework Directive could bring great change and upgrade packaging sustainability. In order to achieve it, we need to ensure that all legislative proposals implement lasting, clear and practical regulatory framework; it would drive innovation and ensure a greater consistency between the European objectives for environment and climate.

We believe that it is crucial that the PPWD review promotes the development of sorting, collecting, recycling and reuse facilities. Eco-designing packaging will not be enough to make a difference, for a proper facility is necessary to increase the recycling of packaging and spread the adoption of reuse models.

Another crucial aspect of the PPWD review is the European internal aspect: on the one hand, the review could potentially create a European market for secondary raw materials, ensuring that packaging would never be processed only as waste but as a valuable resource. On the other hand, it is essential that the PPWD review prevents the internal market from a potential dispersal because of the implementing of conflicting national measures, at the expense of the circulation of packaging and packaged goods across Europe. These conflicting measures are barriers to the Single Market and harm both the European competitiveness and the European objectives regarding circular economy. A practical Single Market for both packaging, packaged goods and secondary raw materials is key in order to ensure the success of European objectives in terms of circular economy.

2. Packaging is a sensitive society subject. Could you explain what Europen intends to do with its communication campaign entitled “Packaging With Purpose” ?

Indeed, it is important to remember that packaging exists for a reason. Packaging protects the products as well as the consumers’ health and safety, increases the storage life of products, reduces product losses, eases the transportation, handling and the distribution of products, ensures the promotion of packaged products and provides essential and practical information to consumers. Packaging is essential to all industries and all products, for almost all goods get packaged at some point. With the campaign “Packaging with Purpose”, we want to raise people’s awareness  of all risks that would be related to a world without any packaging, and remind them why they are essential to our society. More information can be found on our website www.europen-packaging.eu.

3. CNE et Europen go back a long way in their partnership. According to you, how could you become more effective together towards Fair Packaging?

We are glad to be able to collaborate with institutions such as the “Conseil National de de l’Emballage”. It is crucial that the collaboration between all operators of the packaging value chain across all member countries of the EU continues and that we raise our voice to ensure a harmonized legislative framework regarding packaging in Europe in order to guarantee a more unified single market that would increase investments and find sustainable solutions.