b'WELL-ORCHESTRATED SUSTAINABILITY GOALSThe final and fourth future scenario, The effortless closed loop, would move the market to the other extreme, where both the food and packaging industries would be strictly regulated with the goal ofstrict climate friendliness. Players throughout the entire food value chain are pulling in the same direction. Driven by regulatory pressures - rather than consumer preferences - food brands innovate closely together with their packaging suppliers toward common sustainability goals.For consumers, making climate-friendly choices is so easy that most people barely notice they are doing it. Food packaging needs to comply with the strict regulations related to climate and recycling, and food packagingIn one of the possible futures of food packaging, recycling is a well-oiled machine of coordinated suppliers will need to put in a lot of effortefforts and prevailing closed-loop thinking has made trash a thing in the past.into gathering the data related to the environmental footprint of their materials.In this future, recycling is a well- developments and trends that are Single-packaged products will simplyoiled machine of coordinated effortsalready visible in the market.not exist, and instead, reusable, durableand prevailing closed-loop thinkingTheres something recognisable packaging that the consumer can storehas made trash a thing in the past.in all of the scenarios. For me, at and return to the agent next time willA crucial issue in this operatingleast, it seems that renewability and become commonplace in food delivery. environment would be to solve howrecyclability of packaging material will the use of recycled fibres could becontinue to drive value, one way or If the development described in thisbroadened for example into foodanother. So regardless of the future scenario would become reality, it couldcontact materials. The industry istrajectory, the fibre-based value chain mean a diminishing need for packagingalready looking for answers to theneeds to be aware and prepared to materials overall. On the other hand,question, which is also topical inmake the most out of the situation.the need to package and transportrelation to the utilisation of non-products from manufacturing to retailwood fibres in paper and boardIt is timeWe have been presented with a golden and again to consumers home wouldmanufacturing. Maintaining both highfor theopportunity as the world continues to not disappear. The emphasis could forenough quality and cleanliness of theseek solutions to current packaging instance shift more from micro levelfibre puts pressure e.g. on the coatingsfibre-basedchallenges. The food packaging packaging to macro level packaging.and adhesives used in packaging. packagingindustry has recently seen a wave In food packaging, we are now seeingvalue chainof innovations and new solutions in molded fibre slowly gaining groundTIME TO MAKE AN IMPACT TOGETHER to makeresponse to those, but it is just the from the paper and board materials thatOf course, we are not able to predicta tangiblebeginning. Now it is time for us to are manufactured with traditional webthe future, Matula points out. Butimpact on thecollaborate and innovate together to forming. In ten years time, the industryeven if these future scenarios arefuture of themake a tangible and lasting impact on might have taken long leaps forward,extremes, they are a way to explorepackagingthe future of the packaging industry, Antti Matula describes. the possible outcomes of someindustry. concludes Matula.WORLD PULP&PAPER 33'