Company insight Round a circular economy
For Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, people and planet are just as important as profit. Nicole Kambeck, director circular economy at Mitsubishi Chemical Europe, highlights the organisation’s shift towards sustainable practices and aspirations for the future, driven by its overarching KAITEKI Vision 30.
M
ake, use, dispose. It is an all too familiar pattern (better
known as the linear economy) that has sadly come to define the life cycles of billions of products and materials around the world. Yet, talk has been turned towards sustainability, and the circular economy (CE) concept has come to the fore. The CE focuses on reducing, reusing and recycling. It works to keep materials in use for as long as possible, extract maximum value from them during use, and then recover as many resources as possible at end-of-life.
For Mitsubishi Chemical
Corporation (MCC), this has become a crucial part of its operations. To better instil sustainable practices, it began funding a Circular Economy Department – Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation Circular Economy (MCC CE) – in Japan in April 2020. As director circular economy for Mitsubishi Chemical Europe (MCE), Nicole Kambeck works closely with MCC CE in Japanese and European businesses to ensure a group-wide strategic approach is developed, aligned and embedded. MCC has been quick to embrace this shift, reflected in its catalogue of packaging solutions: ■
Hostaphan: A polyester film with post-consumer recycled resin used for food packaging.
■ ■
BioPBS: A bio-based polybutylene succinate made from renewable resources that is biodegradable.
Nichigo G-Polymer: A newly-developed vinyl alcohol polymer, which enables the separation of multilayer packaging film to be recycled mechanically.
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Modic tie resin and high gas barrier resin Soarnol: Contributing to the reduction of plastic waste in packaging by lighter and thinner multilayer barrier
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films, and extending shelf life, which leads to reduction of food loss.
“We support MCC’s group companies,” Kambeck affirms, “and offer technical advice on circular economy-promoting technologies, connect businesses internally and externally with relevant partners, look for funding opportunities and offer business-driven advocacy on CE topics in different industry associations. “MCHC is an active member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum’s programme, ‘Collaborative innovation in low carbon- emitting technologies’.”
CE has become an indispensable part of MCC’s global packaging operations, so much so that it is one of the five pillars of the company’s overarching KAITEKI Vision 30. “In Japanese, kaiteki means a state of well-being,” explains Kambeck. “At MCC, our vision is to realise our motto: ‘KAITEKI Value for Tomorrow’. It is a development philosophy and management system that outlines our commitment to deliver a sustainable future.”
The vision looks to harmonise the company’s economic and technological aspirations with social and environmental considerations such as recycling, worker safety and contributions to local communities. CE is a way of balancing each of these in a holistic strategy.
Cooperation and transparency
With circular economy values firmly embedded in consumers, it is now very important for companies to improve the sustainability of their packaging.
Indeed, it is the ambition of MCE to champion sustainable practices globally. In Europe, the EU recently raised its recycling targets for packaging products to 50%-recyclability by 2025 and 55% by 2030.
In the eyes of Kambeck, however, more needs to be done quicker if these goals are to be achieved.
“Current recycling rates of plastic packaging waste in Europe range between 26% and 52%,” the director explains. “Issues surrounding consumer consciousness, collection schemes and recycling infrastructure all contribute, but they shouldn’t be dealt with in isolation. Cooperation in the value chain is essential to success.”
Kambeck also points to the lack of a standardised method of evaluating the environmental impact of packaging products. “The building and construction industry has been working successfully with standardised life-cycle assessment [LCA] schemes for years. Meanwhile, the packaging industry currently uses different approaches to assess the environmental impact of products. This gives no transparency for consumers.
“Here lies another key target for KAITEKI
Vision 30 – the creation of standardised LCA schemes to evaluate the sustainable impact of packaging products.” ●
www.m-chemical.co.jp/en Packaging & Converting Intelligence /
www.pci-mag.com
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