Group Lead, Ved Krishna
Hello, hello! From a software engineer to the founder of a compostable packaging company, the story of Rich Cohen, our guest for this episode is the stuff of biopics! An environmentalist and problem solver at core, Rich was traveling on his sabbatical when he realised that plastic had reached even
0:00 – a packaging company oftentimes I call ourselves the anti- packaging packaging company...
hello hello I’m so happy today to have Richard Cohen the president and founder of elevate packaging Richard I kind of grew up in the cellulose world and uh when I see somebody who’s doing so much with cellulose and other stuff I get very excited so thank you so much for joining the show and for doing the work you do the honor and a pleasure thank y
12:00 – with this recycling industry recycling with the waste industry running this recycling...
making a product one is that the core materials are certified compostable we won’t move forward if there’s an ingredient that’s not survi compostable the next is that there’s a pathway for it to get composted and I think that’s what makes us unique because we don’t start off we don’t see ourselves as a manufacturer of packaging if you’re a manufact
25:00 – the waste industry and the hauling industry and the certification industry they're...
you really figure out that you know if I get a if somebody posts a mailer back to me that is using the the Elevate solution uh do I have the wherewith all to understand uh you know whether this goes into a compost at all or is that something that you know you’re seeing you know with all your effort on the on on on the composting side to eventually
37:00 – us buys packaging no one buys packaging what they're buying is sustainability...
with the consumption that is necessary and the production that’s necessary I mean that both are necessary you know we definitely care about scope three emissions and all that and we do consider that in everything we do but there are going to be you know what’s the term uh you gotta you gotta break an egg to cook an omelette right yeah yeah and and
50:00 – have a the best range of flexible packaging Solutions and labels that...
down to they’re not performing they break they get wet so we’ve taken on that challenge to develop and we have it’s it’s uh finish up its R&D process but they came to us and said it’s not like we need a trash can liner we need a trash can liner that works it doesn’t break holds heavy weight of of uh waste so um then the next question is how do we d
62:00 – Global demographics the market of people that are have affinity for sustainability...
specialized process actually a very different process and a different Market they don’t even know how to sell a $5 can of beer when they’re selling 50 Cent cans of beer right so but at the same time they’re going to see their Market eroding because more and more people are buying this and liking it so what they they have two options they either som
75:00 – adhesive solution for labels in 2007 my intention was entirely to supply...
have our cellophanes available within one to two days so we have it available we can slit it we can digitally print it in short runs I mean c that’s really uncommon for that especially compostable cellophane so you could quite easily get 5,000 full color photographic quality printed cellophane bags with within four weeks from us and that’s the kind
87:00 – think I would want to talk about compostable packaging or circular packaging...
encompassed so it wasn’t honestly I wish I could say oh I’m this community guy but it wasn’t so much that it was more of I’d say a problem solving approach that encompasses a wide range of stakeholders now of course in doing that you’re building relationships with all these different folks and that’s where I come back to say sustainabil is a team s
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