The WPO World Packaging Organisation approved three new Full Members during its 109th Board Meeting and the first of 2023 held at interpack. The new associations accepted as part of this global packaging community are the Chamber of Printing and Packaging Industries (Egypt), the Institut National du Design Packaging (France) and the Irish Packaging Society (Ireland). As ‘Full Members’, all have the right to vote in WPO matters.
“It is meaningful to WPO to get new members from regions where we are not that active yet. This is a way of increasing our presence in other regions and, most important, to contribute to the sustainable development of local and global packaging industries. On the other hand, no doubt these three new countries – Egypt, France and Ireland – will give excellent inputs to WPO new projects and actions. So it is a ‘win win’ partnership,” says Pierre Pienaar, President, WPO.
Senior Vice President of Marketing and President elect, Luciana Pellegrino, adds, “The more packaging associations that join WPO, more we can have a better approach to the global packaging challenges, especially key ones related to save food, food safety, sustainability, digitalization, packaging innovation and packaging education programs. As the voice of the global packaging industry, WPO aims to welcome national representative associations from different countries around the globe and strengthen them to foster the packaging industry in their own countries. Last but not least, we are willing to support countries that do not count with a packaging national body yet, a program that goes on in partnership with UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization).”
Pienaar concludes, “This team work is so important in WPO that we have to thank our Vice Presidents Soha Atallah (Events) and Nerida Kelton (Sustainability & Save Food) for approaching these three new Organisations and our General Secretary, Johannes Bergmair, for making their membership process easy and quick.”
