Sustainable Packaging Summit Utrecht + Green Blue (Tom Pollock)

Join us on November 6th, 2025, for the third annual Coast Summit, as we celebrate the visionary leaders who are pioneering solutions to some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

This year’s theme, "Healthy People, Healthy Planet," highlights the vital link between personal well-being and environmental regeneration. The Coast Summit brings together leaders from the worlds of sustainability, adventure, business, wellness, and storytelling in a format that blends the energy of a trade show with the insight of a summit.

This isn’t just a gathering—it’s a launchpad for people and ideas that are shaping the future.

Tickets are limited and expected to sell out quickly! Schedule coming soon!

Link here to sign up

https://www.coastfilmfestival.com/coast-summit

Join us in Utrecht this November 10-12! Link here to sign up 

https://www.packagingsummit.earth/2025

Summary

In this conversation, Cory Connors and Tom Pollock discuss the mission and impact of GreenBlue and its initiatives in sustainable packaging. They explore the importance of strategic partnerships, the consumer-centric approach of the How to Recycle label, and the significance of global collaboration in addressing sustainability challenges. The upcoming Sustainable Packaging Summit is highlighted as a key event for networking and learning from international practices in packaging innovation.


Takeaways

GreenBlue is the parent organization for sustainable packaging initiatives.
The Sustainable Packaging Coalition has grown from 75 to over 600 members.
Consumer education is crucial for effective recycling practices.
Strategic partnerships enhance the impact of sustainability efforts.
Global collaboration is essential for addressing packaging challenges.
The How to Recycle label simplifies recycling for consumers.
Events like the Sustainable Packaging Summit foster valuable relationships.
Learning from international practices can improve local sustainability efforts.
Innovation in packaging materials is vital for sustainability.
Communication and collaboration are key to achieving sustainability goals.


Titles

Exploring GreenBlue's Mission in Sustainable Packaging
The Importance of Strategic Partnerships in Sustainability


Sound bites

"We work through our members"
"We can move faster by working together"
"We can learn so much from people in Europe"


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to GreenBlue and Sustainable Packaging Coalition
02:40 The Role of Strategic Partnerships in Sustainability
05:14 How to Recycle Label: Impact and Collaboration
07:57 Global Reach: Expanding GreenBlue's Influence
10:41 Sustainable Packaging Summit: Building Relationships
13:11 Learning from Global Innovations in Packaging
15:56 Who Should Attend the Sustainable Packaging Summit?
18:41 Conclusion and Future Collaborations

Keywords

GreenBlue, Sustainable Packaging, How to Recycle, Strategic Partnerships, Global Collaboration, Sustainable Packaging Summit, Consumer Education, Recycling, Packaging Innovation, Environmental Sustainability

https://www.coastfilmfestival.com/coast-summit

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

1:06

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. In today's episode, I connected with Tom Pollock, the Director of Strategic Partnerships at GreenBlue, which is dedicated to the sustainable use of materials in society. It was a great conversation and I think you'll really enjoy it too. Before we jump in, I want to share an exciting event coming up, Coast Summit presented by the New Earth Project. This year's theme is Healthy People, Healthy Planets. And we'll be gathering at the Rivian Theater in Laguna Beach on Thursday, November 6th for a full day of conversations at this intersection of environmental progress, human wellbeing, and the power of storytelling. It's part of the Coast Film and Music Festival. If you're passionate about innovation and real solutions, this is a day you won't want to miss. Please check the show notes for more info. Now on to my conversation with Tom Pollock I'm so excited today to be joined by my friend, Tom Pollock of GreenBlue. He's been on the show before and we're really covering what's exciting the expansion of and the new global reach of GreenBlue into Europe with the Sustainable Packaging Summit put on by Packaging Europe. So Tom, it's so exciting to have you on. Welcome, Yeah, thank you. As you know, I'm a big fan of the podcast, whether I'm on it or not. And it's great to see you again here on the Airwaves. And thanks for the invitation. Thank you. I want to talk a little bit about GreenBlue. People know about the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, I think, but they need to know a little bit about the parent overarching organization that you are a part of. You're the director of strategic partnerships and you do a great job developing those relationships. But what is GreenBlue? Yeah, thank you. Green Blue is, like you said, sort of the parent or the umbrella organization that really serves as the conduit for the rest of our programs within Green Blue. So we started probably 20 years ago back. It sort of came out of the University of Virginia School of Architecture when design and sustainability were first starting to you know, become a topic like designing for sustainability or designing for recyclability. And it was through from there that kind of spun off and became its own organization in Charlottesville and Green Blue was meant to sort of represent sort of the environmental side of things and also the sort of the architecture design side of things. So that's the the a lot of people ask about the about the name and sort of the origin there. So that's that's where it came out of. But you know how it serves today and how it served since its inception is to really be that parent organization to drive our mission, which is to move into a sustainable materials economy. So the way that we do that is we work through our members and that's the Sustainable Paction Coalition, which, you when I started, there was probably 75 members. We're up to over 600 today and they represent everyone across the supply chain from mom and pop converters to large corporate global brands and retailers, which makes it a lot of fun and excellent to share the ideas. And that's really what the SPC is, the Sustainable Paction Coalition is, is to bring together all of those different folks across the supply chain and industries to work on those solutions together. So GreenBlue serves as the parent organization to the SPC, but also Hot Recycle is another sort of well-known program within SPC. You know, just check the side of your, your Coke can or your Amazon mailer and you'll see our on-pack label. That's instructions for the consumer about what to do with that particular package. And that's another program under the green blue umbrella. We also have others like the recycle material standard, RMS, clean ingredients, Navigate, which is our advisory services group and a number of others, but really the main ones are our SPC, how to recycle and RMS. Those, those serve under, under green. So a lot of the programs, they're not really in silos. So that's why we've kind of kept that green blue umbrella organizations that, you know, that way we can kind of let where it's supposed to have advantageous and natural sort of have the programs all kind of help serve one another and learn from one another. A lot of impact you've been having at the GreenBlue and all your organizations underneath that umbrella. The how to recycle label is, uh like you said, world famous now and making a huge change to the way people, consumers interact with packaging, which I think is so valuable. uh It's a very simple system of, hey, is this recyclable or not? And you can even scan it with your smart codes now, which is really cool to be able to say, okay, depending on where you are, is this actually recyclable or should I compost it or would it be the best move to just put it in the garbage can to avoid, you know, sullying up the Murph that would have to deal with this. Great, great points. So uh your role as a director of strategic partnerships. That's right. That's right. And uh let's talk about that. Who's a partner that you're being strategic with? Yeah, we have many partners about a year and a half, two years ago when our new executive director, Paul Nowak, He was able to take a fresh look at how our organization functions. And one of the first things he thought was, we're working with other ENGOs, other mission-based organizations, other associations, but we're not really doing it in a very sort of strategic specific way. So, If we could figure out a strategy to kind of bring together the ENGOs who are all kind of working on the same thing or sort of similar or different pieces of the same thing, we can have a lot more impact by working together. We can move faster. And again, being a fan of your podcast, know, everything we talk about in terms of sustainability is urgent. So we don't have time to kind of have two companies doing the same thing or, you know, competing for resources to do the same thing. The partnerships are really about finding other organizations that share our sustainability mission, not exactly, but a piece of it. And then we can move forward together by really figuring out ways to partner on different projects, different programs. One that comes to mind since you asked for a specific one, have, I'd say now, you 10 very sort of key strategic partners, but the list of folks that we're working with is longer than that. But we want to make sure that the ones that we've identified that we're putting our best foot forward on. So that will expand over time. But for the resource that we have today, among those 10 is the Recycling Partnership. And you mentioned the QR code on the How to Recycle label. That's a good example of each organization doing what they do best. So our on-pack label instruction has been around for seven or eight years. Someone from Hot Recycle, you know, might get in trouble because I have that wrong. It's over five years. And the Recycling Partnership does many, many good things, but one that they've developed in last few years is a national access database where you can actually, sort of a local zip code level, figure out. what's happening in terms of what can be recycled and what can't. So if you have a QR code on a hot recycle label and then you use the national database that the recycling partnership has put together, that's an example of where we're able to both do what we do best to create a better uh instructional recycling label for the consumer. I love the story about how the, how to recycle label came to be, uh, from one of your, uh, sustainable packaging coalition events. And, uh, and there was a brainstorming and somebody raised their hand and Paul's told this story before on the podcast about, Hey, we need this to be the same everywhere. And we need, we need to get together here and make this so we're not having 35 different. labels and logos and it's very confusing. And so this is really a, it's a partnership nationally and internationally with companies saying, let's make this all the same. Let's be on the same page here and figure out the how to recycle system, which is so great for consumers and for brands. Right. that would bring up a really good point, Cory, because I think within the how to recycle program, there's so many different partners that we work with to make that work. So it's not just, you know, our very intelligent and hardworking team at how to recycle. It's kind of making calls on this is recyclable. That's not recyclable. We're using data and information methodologies that are proven from the supply chain. So for the different, you know, there's you have to uh meet criteria around legality. As you know, you've heard this a million times, Cory, but for maybe a refresher for listeners, you have to meet the requirements for legality and then access, sortation, reprocessing and then end market. So all of those things need to be met in terms of getting a widely recyclable label. So within each of those steps, we have different partners that we work with to kind of help us define and make credible, defensible judgments about whether or you meet those criteria. So for plastics, for instance, there's all kinds of different plastics. Some are recyclable, some aren't. And we can use our partners at APR, the Association for Plastic Recyclers, who we are very close. They're another strategic partner. We work with them when they're technical guidance to help create those. That becomes part of the definition of the how to recycle label is drawn from the APR technical. guidance. That's just one example of many. It's such a great organization and it's having such a big impact. think in a very positive way, lot of people have been frustrated about things like this in the past saying, it's just not working. We're struggling here. How can we make this better? And I think the, the SPC team and the green blue team have really stepped up to say, Hey, let's get together and let's, let's have these events so that we can communicate. these, partnerships really, uh, where people can come in and work together. And brands can communicate with each other and say, we're trying this, it's not working any ideas. And I think that, that community that you've developed is really key to a successful future where it's, actually have sustainable packaging. Thank you. That's great to hear because it can be frustrating. know, um you know, talking to folks within the industry or outside, there's lots of questions, but I always get the sense that everybody wants to do the right thing. Everyone wants to either recycle, you know, reduce, reuse, compost. There's a lot of different solutions. And I think the more that we all harmonize and it's, you know, an overused uh analogy, but you know, the more we are all rowing in the same direction, you know, the better. So I think we're starting to see that, you and when we go over to Utrecht, you know, in a couple of months and we have so many good partners in the EU as well and in the UK and, you know, been establishing those, you know, at least a couple, if not a few more than that years old, those relationships. And we're starting to see some dividends on those relationships as well, which has been great. Yeah, we should talk about this event. So the 10th through 12th of November in Utrecht, Holland, near Amsterdam, we're going to have the Sustainable Packaging Summit put on by Packaging Europe. Let's talk about how you've developed that relationship with Tim Sykes and the team at Packaging Europe to kind of expand both relationships. Yeah, that's a great question. you know, uh Barbara Fowler, our director of marketing communications and her team, you know, really deserve the bulk of the credit there. They're very, very savvy about who we work with and how we work with them. And it was 2019, I think, Tim and some of his team were at an SPC engage event. And as they started talking about the, you know, the respective events, it became pretty clear that there was a lot of there there, you there was a lot of opportunity. So Barbara and Tim started to get talking and we were actually, we co-located last year in Amsterdam and had a really, it was a really valuable and productive experience. So since 2019, and of course, you know, we know what kind of happened a couple of years after that, but in some ways that was maybe one of the, not the main, but one of the catalysts to kind of help foster that relationship was that we were sharing, you know, not just trends, you know, what are you seeing there? You know, what are we seeing here? But also kind of building off of, you know, the progress and sort of the different developments and trends that were happening in North America and in Europe. And I would say, you know, there's globally as well. I both of our events are starting to attract more of a global audience. So we will be back. Uh, this, uh, fall and you tracked, you said, and, we are, uh, participating in a number of sessions and Olga Kachuk, who's our director of the sustainable passion coalition will be helping Tim, I think a couple of times on stage and I'll get a chance to moderate a session and we sort of, you know, get to be part of, of the, of the event, which is an amazing event. We'll have a booth there as well. So, you know, come say hi to, uh, to myself or anyone else on the SBC team. If I'm not over at your booth, Cory talking to you. you Yes, I absolutely can't wait. And you're right. It was an incredible event last year and really made sense to co-locate your events with that team at Packaging Europe. But I think this makes a lot of sense too, having a booth at the event and having you and on stage. You're both such talented speakers and moderators. I think Olga even uh presented a lot of the awards at the award ceremony last year, was so great. She was incredible. award ceremony group is gonna steal her she's just you know all over talents but then she comes up with another one You just, you don't know people until you really put them on stage and get to get to see how they perform. And wow, she just nailed it. her and, Tim and, and, and, uh, Harry, good, good folks up there leading the show. And, um, I think you're right. Uh, even though we're focused on North America here being Americans, we need to understand that packaging is a global economy and the world is a global. a system that we can learn so much from people in Europe who have been trying these things years in advance of America. things like their EPR laws and things like that that are taking shape, they've made a lot of the mistakes for us. And they're teaching us how to accommodate the things here in America. and how to be better at this without going down the wrong path. And so I've been saying this for years, I know you have too, that we need to listen to each other and partner. this opportunity with GreenBlue and the Sustainable Packaging Summit uh is perfect. Yeah, we're very excited. There were a lot of fruits from the last trip. I think there'll be even more this time since we're starting to build some of those relationships. You know, there's the on-pack recycling label in the UK, OPRL. And in many ways, Recycle was inspired by that program. And it was interesting. We kind of launched at the same time. There was, you know, that five years where... They were both kind of developing in their own regions and areas. And in the last year, we've had monthly calls with them to, know, Steve, you know, talk about, you know, what they're seeing, what we're seeing. But now that's developed into, we have a lot of the same customers. We're all attacking, you know, the same kind of problem, but from different angles, we have, you know, different situations and realities. But most of it is very similar. So by having those conversations and being able to kind of work through our common large global brand. These are global issues, right? These are global problems. We've been able to gain so much and we're actually going to on the way back from Utrecht, stop in the UK and in London and speak with their board and with that group and think more about how there's some different ways that we can kind of streamline on-pack labeling instructions and everything that comes with that. think it's really about, you know, consumer education as much as anything. What are some ways that we can do that? know, globally and expand. We've had people reach out to us about other different countries, you know, wanting to, you know, create their own unpack label instructions. So there's different ways that with OPR we can do that. But that's just an example to say, you know, these, these problems are global in nature. They're urgent. The more that we talk and the more that we can, you know, bring together our resources and expertise, try not to duplicate efforts where possible. you know, we can move so much faster and so much more resource efficient if we do that. And that's, think, one of the goals for going overseas this fall is to kind of come back with some of that in hand and be able to execute on some of those plans and those relationships. Yeah, well said. And I'm excited to get to work with you and your team, Jeremiah and Paul and the rest and and interview some of these new startup companies and meet with these new innovators of sustainability and packaging. You know, there's so many materials and coatings and completely re-thinks on the way packaging should be done. that we're learning about from the people in Europe. And I'm really thankful to have that opportunity. What kinds of things are you looking forward to Tom at this event? Yeah, I think that's definitely one of them. there's I can't think of the names exactly. But when you started talking about that, there was a there was a I remember going to a booth on the, you know, in the the the auditorium there and just, you know, going by and seeing all the really interesting things that people are doing. Some of them are, you know, they might be kind of there might be sort of a similar parallel path in the U.S. But then some of them were like, oh, I remember someone talking about wondering if that was possible in there and they're you know, this particular organization is, is actually going ahead and doing it. So there's a lot of really interesting, um, I think innovations in terms of the packaging products, which you'll see there. But then in terms of just the, um, you know, the brains and the missions that are being brought together as well, for lack of a better word, there's just some really dedicated smart people, right? That are like, you know, this core, you're one of them. You know, there's just, there's people who have decided that, you know, they're going to put their resources and their brain power and expertise behind. sustainability and driving sustainability. So to get to meet them, whether it's people from UNICEF or WWF or the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, OPRL, I mean, I could keep going, but there's a lot of our peers and partners in Europe that'll be there as well. It'll be just great to kind of see what's happening with them and sort of explore the opportunities to work together and just have more impact together. down excellent. Let's talk about who should go to this event. uh from your stable of members for GreenBlue and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, who would you recommend go to the Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht? Yeah, that's a great question. And the obvious answer is, are brands of retail or CPGs that have a global reach? I think anyone who is supplying materials to these companies that have a global reach, I think there's a lot to learn there as well. Anyone who's looking for inspiration or innovation in their packaging or their materials, like you said, like when you walk around and check out the booths in the exhibit hall. There's a lot of inspiration and innovation there. I know I always come back with lots of different ideas. So I would say anyone, I know it's a bit of a hike, but it's not that hard when you get there. I think the prices are okay for traveling overseas. And it's definitely worth it. Tim and SPS put on a great event. The content when you go there is really well. organized and managed, there's no kind of throwaway sessions. I think it's more a fact of, you know, kind of figure out where you want to go. And then the exhibit hall, the people that you get to meet. It's just, it's great. It's refreshing. There'll be a sort of a similar group of folks that you'd see at SBC, but almost are kind of their doppelgangers in Europe. So you get to kind of see the same people, but you know, kind of working on, you know, different problems from a fresh perspective. you know, some new relationships. That's a great point. It's such an opportunity to build relationships. It's such an opportunity to learn from people from their perspective. Okay. This is, this is what it's like here. what are you seeing in the U S what are you seeing and how can we, how can we work together to solve these issues globally? very exciting opportunity. and you're right. It's, people freak out a little bit on the cost, it's, uh, it's well worth the money. think. And it's a very valuable experience. I've made career changing relationships at these events and highly recommend going. Absolutely. Well, thank you, sir. This has been great, Tom. I appreciate your wisdom and your friendship. Looking forward to the Sustainable Packaging Coalition events and the Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht. Likewise, thanks for all the work you do with the podcast. It's a great channel to get this information out there and we need more of this information out there. And thank you for your expertise and friendship as well. And I look forward to seeing you in Utrecht. Deal. Sounds great. All right.