Chicago — TC Transcontinental does not rely on a top-down, old-guard business approach to sustainability in the company's flexible plastic packaging business.
The Montreal-based company sees success coming from a mix of opinions, outlooks and experience.
And TC Transcontinental sees value in taking a multi-generational approach toward finding solutions, CEO Thomas Morin said in an exclusive interview at the recent Pack Expo in Chicago.
"I think this dates back quite a lot now. We started on this journey at least five, six years ago. Back then, the question — it was a challenge back then — [was] how to make flexible plastic packaging something people can easily recycle.
"That was our commitment, and it still is today. Since then, we've been spending a lot of time, effort, money, resources into developing proper solutions. Because there's not only one solution. There are several solutions now, which when we take a step back, we feel like, 'Wow, we covered a lot of ground in five years.' Because five years ago, we had no idea, to be very blunt, no idea how to make this happen. Delivering a product that is recyclable, that is economical, that is performing well in the customer's minds, that looks and feels the same, that's a significant challenge," Morin said.
Regardless of age and experience, he said, employees solving these challenges have to be aligned from "top to bottom. This is what success would look like, first thing."
"The second thing was obviously to resource the team with talents that were capable of finding solutions, although we didn't have the solutions handy, but they were the ones capable of exploring different options and coming back to something that would meet our requirements," he said.
"The team, the resources, the talents, the people, the people side. We resourced pretty much our R&D team onto this priority," Morin said.