EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 10/22 www.petpla.net 24 the point where we are predominantly using recycled materials. The immediate goal is to reach the 30% level, which is where the Plastics Tax comes in, but I would like to go beyond that and really drive it. We can do it with the right models.” Dr Roberts’ background and experience is very much about sustainability, in its broader sense: environmental responsibility and commercial success. “It’s truly about ESG – environmental, social and corporate governance,” she said. It’s the social side of sustainability as well as the environmental impacts we have. It’s about the purpose of the business and about driving the best benefit for our people, for all our stakeholders: shareholders, employees, customers and the final consumers.” Robinson’s Sustainability Pledge became active in March 2021. The most visible manifestation is a change in signage, to a sage green colour – restrained, rather than ‘in your face’ – and the ubiquity of its Five Pillars, graphically represented in the illustration below. It includes staff well-being as well as environmental commitments to Zero Waste to landfill by 2021; achieve Sustainable Buildings by 2025; and to be Net Carbon Positive by 2030. It is currently ahead of its targets. Commercial competitiveness Businesses still have to be competitive. Customers may say nice things about sustainability and environmental responsibility but they are still going to want competitively-priced supplies. “If you look at carbon, it’s about energy and energy is based on money – so the lower the carbon, the more cost-effective it can be,” Dr Roberts continued. “What it does change is your investment plan and how you view those investments. If we are buying a new machine, I’m not going to choose one that’s environmentally unsound or perform worse than one of our current machines. It has to be better, to be lower carbon, to be more efficient and cheaper to run, using less energy and fewer people. It needs to drive efficiency within the business.” The environmental dovetails neatly with the commercial. “In terms of materials, it is our customers who ultimately make the choice; it’s their specification. We will strive towards using as much recycled content as possible. Security of supply is, of course, essential for all our products,” she explained. “It is very much about having the right relationships with your suppliers.” Security of supply is very much a concern, after the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. British plastics manufacturers did not have to shut down during Covid-19 because of fall in demand – if anything, demand from medical suppliers ramped up and more than replaced downturns elsewhere; but the British Plastics Society reckoned that more than half of businesses in the converting sector had to shut down lines because they could not get raw materials. It illustrates that Robinson’s contention that environmental and commercial sustainability are inextricably interlinked. Management systems and maintain the legacy of innovation Robinson’s is also in the process of replacing its management IT system. While the existing technology works fine as it is, the new one will have extended capabilities in quality control, planning and forecasting. We concluded our visit with a tour of the factory floor at Kirkby in Ashfield, which is currently devoted to PP and HDPE containers but space is being made for the PET lines that are coming over from the Sutton site. Production is a mixture of automated and manual, for agility and responsiveness. Robinson’s has a history of innovation. We asked how that is being manifested now. “We work with Unilever, P&G and other companies, all of whom have sophisticated brand managers and undertake a huge amount of consumer research on what they want and so, realistically, I’m not going to be able to add any value on design,” Dr Roberts said. “Where we add value is by searching to find out how to make the product more efficiently, make it lighter, make it faster, how to reduce the environmental impact and to increase the use of raw materials without compromising quality.” www.robinsonpackaging.com An operator packs PET bottles.
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