The German Industrial Association for Plastic Packaging (IK) has elected Georg Pescher as its new president.
Pescher has been Alpla’s managing director for Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands for the past five years, after working as a plant manager for 10 years.
He is replacing Roland Straßburger, who held this position for the past six years. The transition was made official at the IK members' meeting in Oberursel this week.
As IK President, Pescher plans to work for a ‘fair public perception of sustainable plastic packaging and balanced regulation in the interests of climate protection and resource conservation’, IK said in a statement.
Pescher said that IK’s members should open their factory gates to politicians, the media, and the interested public to improve the industry’s image.
He also plans to campaign for ‘same rules for everyone’ in regulation like the EU’s PPWR, continuing the lobbying work IK has been engaged in.
"The same rules for everyone must be the order of the day if European packaging regulation is to become a functioning component of the Green Deal and also of the EU internal market. Facts must count,” Pescher said during his inaugural speech.
The association has called for material neutrality in the PPWR. It has appealed to a fact-based decision-making despite ‘plastic as a material unfortunately not being held in high regard’, citing an independent study showing that, in many cases, replacing plastic with alternatives results in worse greenhouse gas emissions.
Pescher said the German plastic packaging industry is a ‘relevant factor’ in Germany and that he will work to ensure ‘it stays that way’.