MEPCA are delighted to be celebrating Tom Giddings, Executive Director of Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation Ltd (Alupro), as our Manufacturing Champion for September.
For those unfamiliar with the organisation, Alupro is an industry-funded, not-for-profit representing the UK’s aluminium packaging industry. Alupro works tirelessly to meet and exceed the industry’s recycling obligations.
Tom joined Alupro in 2020 as Sustainability and Public Affairs Manager, having previously worked at international packaging provider DS Smith as the Sustainability Data and Reporting Manager. In under a year, Tom was promoted to lead Alupro as Interim General Manager; in Jan 2022, he was appointed as Executive Director.
Tom has since cemented himself as a leading figure in aluminium recycling, becoming a voice for the industry. He has been instrumental in devising and promoting evidence-based initiatives that educate and drive improvements across the UK’s aluminium recycling infrastructure.
We took the opportunity to talk to Tom about corporate attitudes to sustainability, the incoming Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, and the challenges of representing the industry in matters of policy and legislation.
How have attitudes changed to sustainability since beginning your career over a decade ago?
I started working in the sustainability space when it was first gathering momentum. At that time, only the largest organisations had a sustainability strategy and even fewer were putting their heads above the parapet by reporting data.
Since then, sustainability has become a driving force in global business leadership, impacting multiple departments and influencing the highest echelons of corporate strategy. Elsewhere, consumers have become more conscious than ever before about environmental matters.
This bedding in has been essential. After all, recent political movements have shown that net zero may be facing turbulent times ahead.
With EPR coming into full effect in October, how prepared are packaging manufacturers for the related changes?
Ultimately, it depends on the size of the manufacturer in question. EPR brings with it some of the biggest changes in packaging rules for decades and, from first-hand experience, it seems that the larger organisations have the resource to comprehensively deal with these changes, while the smaller players are running to keep up with simply reaching compliance.
It’s positive to see that, across the board, preparations are well underway, but progress is far from uniform.
Supported by changes in legislation and new initiatives, aluminium recycling has reached a pivotal moment. What are the key strategies for maintaining this momentum?
The first priority is to scale the good work. Continued investment into proactive behavioural change initiatives, like our MetalMatters and Every Can Counts programmes, will help to build further momentum and ensure that positive messages are communicated even more widely.
Simultaneously, we need to ensure that upcoming legislative change, including the introduction of pEPR and the national roll-out of DRS, drive a real uplift in aluminium packaging recycling – not just an increase in collected packaging volumes. This is key to supercharging the UK’s circular packaging economy.
As a voice for the industry in matters of policy and legislation, what are some of the barriers you experience, and how do you overcome them?
The biggest barrier is demonstrating scale and worth. After all, aluminium is one of the smallest material segments by tonnage, yet one of the most valuable (by price).
To effectively represent our members and the wider industry, we need to demonstrate this value and ensure that our voice is heard. We do this by talking to everyone we can about the benefits of using aluminium as a packaging material and its superior environmental credentials.
By raising awareness of aluminum’s growing market profile, and its sustainable qualities, we’re able to punch above our weight in matters of policy and legislation.
