CIRCULÉIRE Q1 Network Meeting 2025 - A Discussion on PPWR with Repak

Dr Geraldine Brennan (IMR) and Colm Munnelly (Repak) presenting at Q1 Network Meeting on PPWR

On Wednesday Irish Manufacturing Research hosted a CIRCULÉIRE X Repak collaboration event ‘PPWR as a Driver of Circular Innovation’ with over 60 grocery, retail, food, plastics & packaging and B2B/B2C companies gathering to unpack the regulations and explore innovation opportunities.

Niall McLoughlin, Principal Officer, CE Strategic Policy Unit, Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications opened the session with an overview of the strategic priorities of his unit. Key highlights included the announcement of successful CEIGS 2024 Projects (noting three as CIRCULÉIRE Circular Ventures Accelerator Alumni), the upcoming CE Strategy 2.0 Consultation, DRS scheme success at 1.2bn container returns, the launch of a study on measures to further increase recycling rates; a National Policy Statement & Roadmap on Circular Textiles and C&D Roadmap nearing completion, as well as enhanced funding for CIRCULÉIRE in 2025.

Dr Geraldine Brennan, Head of Circular Economy at IMR, chaired proceedings, welcomed new members (i-Supply, HaPPE Earth and BladeBridge), our newly appointed 2025 Industry Steering Group Members (Donough McGrath, Rory O Dwyer, Mark O’Sullivan and Colette Van Jaarsveld), gave an overview of CIRCULÉIRE’s circular innovation network, and confirmed the upcoming visit by Alan Dillon TD, Minister of State, DETE with special responsibility for Small Businesses and Retail and DECC with special responsibility for Circular Economy to IMR’s Mullingar RD&I Lab.

Colm Munnelly, Director of Regulatory Affairs at Repak delivered an overview of the regulations and highlighted the new compliance requirements and associated timeframes.  Definitions have broadened, there are new producer register requirements, packaging waste prevention, minimisation, re-use and refill targets; new recyclability of packaging and recyclability performance grades, minimum recycled content requirements, changes to compostable packaging requirements; and the need for an authorised representative for packaging and reporting of packaging data (by material type).

PPWR Workshop at Q1 Network Meeting

After a restorative coffee and some enthusiastic networking, the group reconvened to engage with IMR’s Sophie Reynolds, CE policy & Innovation Lead who spoke about product, process, material and business model innovation opportunities as well as our upcoming Innovation Sprints.  To break the ice, Sophie highlighted 4 key innovation outputs from our 2021 Packaging Thematic Working Group that were most aligned with PPWR, namely: modifiable transport trays, packaging material standardisation, labelling systems, and compostable packaging.

The groups then took to their innovation challenge, exploring innovation ideas, opportunities and barriers and rounded off the session by each identifying the most important and urgent innovation ideas for their sectors. 

While the exercise was very much quick dip, CIRCULÉIRE has a range of work packages that can be used to deep dive PPWR solutions. The group are now busy responding to our next steps survey – more on this shortly!

Thanks again to Repak for collaborating with us and to all the attendees, we look forward to working closely with innovative companies to explore circular solutions.