It’s not just consumers who need to change their attitudes and behaviours around plastics.
Packaging manufacturers and retailers need to take action too.
Professor Linda Hendry makes a return visit to the podcast, explaining how her work on supply chains unites her interests in plastics as part of the Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives (PPiPL) project and on modern slavery.
We look at how food producers, packaging manufacturers and retailers decide how to package and transport food before it reaches consumers; the role of government and regulation when it comes to packaging design and redesign – and the difficulties companies have in using packaging that meets these requirements; and how consumer attitudes affect how companies operate.
Linda outlines the strategies businesses can apply to cut the plastic packaging and waste they produce, and explains the ‘regrettable substitute’ concept as she tells us why alternatives are not always better.
We cover important issues of the day: Does Jan have a crisp addiction problem? Does Paul give his children too many crisps? Did Linda mislead her kids about how many crisps they had in the house? And how does this all fit in with packaging decisions?
Plus, does Linda – or her domestic engineer – know whether the Ancient Egyptians wrapped mummies in plastic? Is there a serial killer on the PPiPL project? And how do the Minnesota Vikings defensive line of the 1970s fit into it all?
Read more about the seven steps towards sustainable packaging innovation: https://doc.your-brochure-online.co.uk/Lancaster-University_FiftyFourDegrees_Issue_21/10/
And read the PPiPL project’s white paper on packaging here: https://zenodo.org/records/10839787
Transforming Tomorrow
Sustainability is key for any business that wants to build a lasting legacy. From carbon footprints to biodiversity to modern slavery, seabeds to factory floors, everything matters.
On Transforming Tomorrow, we make the complex understandable, the theory practical, as we guide you through the ever-changing and often exciting world of sustainability in business.
Speaking to internationally renowned experts and business leaders, we uncover how to mainstream environmental, social and economic sustainability into purposeful business strategy and performance.
Whether you are leading transition in your business, want to build a corporation with a green heart or change your individual actions, or just want to know more about how space weather might affect your operations, Transforming Tomorrow is the show for you.
Hosts Jan and Paul bring insight, perspective, and not a little amount of disagreement, to all the subjects, helping you find the message among the madness.
Join us every Monday to uncover new insights and become a little more inspired that you can make a difference.
You can find transcripts for most episodes at: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/pentland/resources-for-education-and-practice/transforming-tomorrow-podcast/transcripts/
Send your questions on any of the issues we discuss in Transforming Tomorrow to [email protected] or fill in our feedback form here: https://forms.office.com/e/7Bw4rDiRDt
Find out more about the Pentland Centre and its work here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/pentland/
Meet the Hosts
Professor Jan Bebbington is the Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University. Jan is an expert on accounting, benchmarking (to her co-host’s annoyance), and how business and sustainability intersect.
Jan loves nature and wants to protect it – and hopes she can change the world (ideally for the better). She is also motivated to address inequality wherever it is found and especially to eliminate forced, bonded or child labour. Transforming Tomorrow is one small step on that quest.
Paul Turner is a former sports journalist who now works promoting the research activities in Lancaster University Management School – a poacher turned gamekeeper as his former colleagues would have it.
Paul has always been interested in nature and the natural environment – it comes from growing up in Cumbria – and has been a vocal proponent of the work of the Pentland Centre since joining Lancaster University. He does not like rankings and benchmarking, and is not afraid to say so.