News

Liz Goodwin sprang something of a surprise for packaging industry delegates last month when she addressed her first open meeting as chief executive of the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap).

An industry leader, weary of seeing packaging singled out for attention by Wrap, talked of a “sea change” in its attitude towards “the real issues facing us”, after Goodwin said collections, recyclates, food waste and the management of mixed plastics would be Wrap’s four main priorities for 2008.

Indeed, packaging as such received minimal attention, mainly through references to the Courtauld Commitment.

But speaking a week after her presentation, Goodwin is quick to stress that packaging is not off the agenda. “Packaging is still a priority for Wrap,” she declares. “It’s integral to a lot of things we work with.” She hopes to show this with the November launch of its new campaign to tackle food waste.

A Wrap report in March said the UK threw away 6.7 million tonnes of food a year, accounting for a fifth of household waste. Goodwin says the campaign will seek to address these findings by highlighting portion sizes and resealable packaging. She also says it’s important to remember the preservative role that packaging plays.

One industry source describes Goodwin as a “listener”. He says her controlled reserve could come across as “a bit cool”, but this is probably because she has been faced with “a bunch of industry people loaded for bear and spoiling for a chance to shoot her”.

More communication
The industry has felt that it needed to have more dialogue with Wrap, something that Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle noticed when he took up his role at the start of the year.

“We are extremely pleased to see that there’s certainly now an evident desire to talk with us a lot more,” he says. “I think Wrap has suddenly realised that we are not the enemy, but we are actually a strong ally.”

When she became Wrap chief executive in April, Goodwin made it a priority to understand the packaging industry. Although she says interaction with the industry is not a new development, she “wants to put more emphasis on it”.

Unlike her predecessor Jennie Price, who worked in the legal field before joining Wrap, Goodwin’s credentials lie in her scientific background. She has a PhD in chemical physics and held a number of production-related roles at ICI, where she started as a lab chemist, and Zeneca.

When asked if her scientific background helps her at Wrap, she states: “I think it does. It means I can see all the technical issues without somebody pointing them out to me. Certainly my PhD taught me how to think.”

Surrounded by a family with a strong interest in the environment, she pursued her desire to work in the environmental field when she took a role as environmental advisor with Zeneca.

In late 2001, Goodwin became director of Wrap’s materials programmes. Then, following a reorganisation in 2005, she took responsibility for Wrap’s work with the construction and manufacturing sectors.

Following Price’s departure in March, Goodwin was appointed acting chief executive for three months before being awarded the role permanently.

Goodwin has watched Wrap evolve over the past few years. “It has grown up,” she says. “When I first joined there were about 30 people here and we were very focused on market development and then we took on a lot of consumer-focused work with the retailers.”

This evolution has been manifested in the development of the Courtauld Commitment, which works towards reducing the amount of packaging that goes to landfill. Over the past year, nine major brand owners have signed up to the agreement, taking the total number of signatories to 24 and accounting for 92% of the grocery sector.

The Courtauld Commitment was just one issue addressed by Goodwin in her speech to the open meeting at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA). She also highlighted Wrap’s work with Nampak, which has examined closed-loop milk bottle recycling and is now being scaled up with organisations across the supply chain.

Goodwin says: “I recognised from day one that I’m not Jennie Price. I’m Liz Goodwin and I’m helping Wrap to evolve and I want Wrap to evolve”.

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GOODWIN AT WRAP
2001 Joined Wrap as director of materials. The job required her to overcome the barriers to market development and promote growth in the use of recyclates
2006 Made director of construction and manufacturing. She directed relations with the supply chain in both sectors to reduce waste, encourage the use of recycled materials, and identify opportunities for materials resource efficiency
March 2007 Temporarily assumes the chief executive role following Jennie Price’s departure
April 2007 Officially appointed chief executive