POPAI Sustainability Committee

In March 2008 the POPAI Australian Sustainability Committee held workshop meetings in Sydney and Melbourne facilitated by Deloitte to outline the next steps for the initiative.

In both meetings, committee members consistently identified four main activity areas in their discussion of the eight goals put forward at the workshops. The results identified the need to form teams around these groupings and use a coordinated approach across each of the four activity areas to implement POPAI’s sustainability goals.

The POPAI Sustainability Committee aims to:

- Encourage POPAI’s members to adopt good environmental practices
- Identify environmental risk opportunities within the industry and suggest guidelines to reduce pollution
- Promote the responsible use of resources, water and power to minimise the environmental impacts of members’ manufacturing and transport processes Promote/educate recycling and the use of sustainable resources wherever feasible within the industry
- Set objectives and implement plans to monitor environmental performance of its members
- Continually strive to improve members’ environmental practices through training, educational seminars and gaining access to research
- Initiate a competition within educational institutions for design students to products the most sustainable point of purchase displays
- Report on environmental performance of its members

The POPAI Australian Sustainability Committee has now been divided into four working groups in response to the report from Deloitte. Each has appointed a Group Team Leader and have begun working on a set of objectives/actions.

The Working Groups and Group Team Leaders are below:

Working Group	Team Leader
Governance	David Evans, SPOS
Research	Paul Hone, Adval
Tool Development	David Gittus, Active Display
Marketing & Communications	Debbie Schubert, PepsiCo

The objectives of each Working Group are:

Governance to:

• provide overall coordination, encouragement and motivation
• define expectations
• identify clear high-level objectives for each activity area
• develop timeframes for delivery of objectives and monitor achievement
• establish links to other POPAI chapters and organisations working for POP sustainability
• serve as a central point of contact for the other groups

Research to:

• identify existing best practice, relevant standards and end-user needs
• discover linkages and points of contact with other programs (government, NGO or private sector)
• compile information sources for tool development and empower end-user decision making
• feed into the development of case studies

Tool Development to:

• provide end-users with the tools needed to easily implement sustainable POP designs and practices

Marketing and Communications to:

• raise awareness of the importance of sustainable POP
• publicise information sources and tools
• encourage adoption of sustainable POP designs and practices

For more information or to become involved with the POPAI Sustainability Committee contact POPAI on popai@popai.com.au