In a virtual unveiling ceremony 31 March, Dow announced the winners of the 2021 edition of the Packaging Innovation Awards, highlighting innovative packaging achievements and assessing these against the 3 judging criteria of technology advancement, sustainability and enhanced user experience.
The Awards, held this year for the thirty-third time, drew some 189 submissions from companies all over the world. A group of independent judges from 7 countries and representing more than 300 years of combined industry experience gathered together - in person - for the first time in two years to comb through the entries, carefully and meticulously evaluating each in the light of the 3 judging criteria.
Next to selecting the Diamond Award winner, 35 other inspiring projects were recognised: nine Diamond finalist winners, whose submissions met all three criteria; 13 Gold awards for submissions fulfilling two of the criteria and 13 Silver recipients, whose entries met one of these criteria.
“Dow and the packaging industry have very ambitious goals to stop the waste, close the loop and protect the climate. Looking at the submissions for the awards this year, we are absolutely heading in the right direction,” said Diego Donoso, president, Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics.
Asked whether there was a trend to be seen in the packaging innovations among this year’s entries, lead judge David Luttenberger, global packaging director for Mintel Group, Ltd. said that what had struck him was first and foremost was the passion that the judges brought to the judging, especially against the backdrop of what the packaging innovations submitted from each of their areas of the world had meant to the people there in terms of accessibility, safety and hygiene. Pressed as to the packaging trends seen across these various geographies, he pointed to the idea of personal responsibility - ‘What does this packaging mean to the consumer, how can the consumer act on it’ - as one of the most striking developments to emerge. “How brand owners, retailers, packagers are communicating to the consumer on pack what they themselves can do,” he explained. “It’s what I call that ‘hyperactionability’: how are they making this product work in harmony so that the consumer can actually be more responsible with it?”
