Solutions to societal grand challenges require sustained collaborative efforts from diverse organisations and stakeholders. In the realm of climate change, the UK has the challenge of clean growth. Towards this end, UK Research and Innovation funded the smart sustainable plastic packaging (SSPP) programme to “establish the UK as a leader in smart sustainable packaging and support a reduction in waste entering the environment.” Central to this programme is the emphasis on collaboration between researchers and plastic packaging supply chainmembers – frompackaging producers to final product retailers – to develop and share innovative solutions which ultimately reduce environmental impact. Here at Lancaster University, we are leading the multi-partner Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives (PPiPL) project, exploring how plastic food packaging is embedded in consumers’ day-to-day lives. We are working with eleven industry partners (from retail, supply chain and wastemanagement) to develop insights into consumer, business, and wastemanagement practices, and to drive cleaner, greener growth. Working closely with partners in a co-creative approach creates a virtuous cycle. External voices provide interesting, relevant and nuanced questions that underpin our work. Here are some of the key issues we have identified for successful partnering. IDENTIFYING ‘REAL’ REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS When talking about solutions to global challenges, our experience is that the detail around ‘what the problem is’ comes fromopen, authentic and ongoing dialogue between academics and practitioners. Through regular conversations, we learnmore of the specifics of themeaningful problems for practice, and broaden our thinking about the grand challenges. Without first identifying what the problem is, how can we talk about potential solutions? Reflecting on the development of our PPiPL collaborations, we knewwe were broadly interested in plastics and consumption – it was only through talking to retail partners about their perspective that our focus landed on food plastic packaging as an exemplar to scrutinise consumers’ attitudebehaviour gap. “We are striving to reduce the amount of single-use food plastic packaging we sell through our stores. We believe this researchwill help us ensure that we can please our customers whilst meeting our environmental obligations.” (Booths) “Theprojectwill inevitablyhelp the retail sector understandhowcustomers can beencouraged tousealternative food packagingsolutions and identify opportunities to reduce theoverall volumeof packagingused throughout our supplychains” (Waitrose) Being flexible and open to the ideas and input of the partners was important, and ensured we focused on concerns of ‘real’ real-world relevance for industry. These partner conversations can also act as a catalyst for identifying who else needs to be in the conversation, and ultimately helped us assemble the wider partner network. An openness to new perspectives and views really helped, as did a willingness to reach out to potential new partners when we identified gaps in skills and knowledge. We spent time with each potential partner and listened to what they had to say to ensure there was mutual interest. “As set out in the recent Green Alliance/Circular Economy Task Force report Plastic Promises, there is clearly a real break between consumer intentions and their purchasing actions when it comes to plastic packaging, whilst at the same time a strong perceptionwithin retailers that theymustmake themove away because of consumer interests. This research is a serious attempt to address amajor lack of knowledge in this area.” (IOM3) GOOD KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE Another key component is the way partners support knowledge exchange and learning across the project. This is important for ensuring there is something of value to the partners and the project. As with setting up relationships, open and regular communications are key, identifying areas of common interest, and creating a feedback loop. Our project needs to be responsive and retain relevance over its three-year duration. Working with partners, we have an enriched understanding of the complexity of plastic packaging and have createdmechanisms for knowledge exchange between and across partner organisations. Our regular partner meetings, as well as formal knowledge exchange events, are important for this purpose. “Understandingmore deeply how people relate to plastic in everyday life will help us structure better collection and re-use campaigns. Engagingwith major industry players through projects like this will help us foster constructive dialogue inwhichwe can feed back some of the real-world difficulties of workingwithwaste materials.” (RELICPlastic) “As thewaste collection authority, we are verywell aware of issues caused by plasticwaste and recognise the 8 | ...there is clearly a real break between consumer intentions and their purchasing actions when it comes to plastic packaging... ‘‘ ’’
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