A look into our Pentawards Meets event...

On Thursday 4th July, 100+ inspiring people from the design industry took to the Everyman in Broadgate for an evening of community, discussion and inspiration. With this year’s theme centred on sustainable design.

Kicking off with the talks, Robert Taylor (Sustainability Director, UPM Raflatac) and Olga van Iterson (Vice President, Stakeholder Relations UPM Specialty Papers) started with some sustainability myth busting. Using insights from a ‘Sustainability in Design’ survey carried out by Pentawards and UPM, which found that cost was one of the biggest challenges to designing sustainably. Amongst their other myth busting, Robert discussed how sustainable choices are more than just a value creation opportunity, and we should take a moment to think about the true cost of not embracing sustainable packaging.

After a week of in-person judging, which saw some incredible judges from brands and agencies such as Disney, B&B Studio, Diageo, Coca-Cola and Unilever take a closer look at the shortlisted entries, some of our Sustainable Jury got together to offer up some insights on what they’ve seen from the sustainable category. Amit Arora (Design Manager - Sustainability, Haleon UK), Mark Buckley (Circular Design Programme Manager, Ellen MacArthur Foundation) and Suzy Shelly (Sustainability and Materials Lead, Pearlfisher UK) discussed what they found inspiring for this year and what they’d like to see more of next year. They also touched upon the common misconceptions they see around sustainability in packaging, as well as circular design and if it’s possible for a universal guideline for sustainable packaging design.

Annie Kuschel, Head of Design Management and Print for Kurz then shared insights from Kurz’s in-depth trend research. Talking on the important impact societal changes have in the field of design and upcoming creative thinkers. Annie used creative visuals to show how these observations can be used as inspiration to create new packaging designs and colours. 

Last but by no means least, Rebecca McCowen, EU Design Lead at Coca-Cola, took to the stage with a different angle. Looking at sustainability from a social sense, she discussed how the way we currently work is just not sustainable and often leads to burn out. She believes that there is a better way; slow design. Having empathy for yourself and your colleagues, being intentional and getting back to the basics with giving yourself time to craft and create. And how with the right ingredients, we can thrive in our creative success.

Ending the night with some time to network, chat and discuss ideas from the talks, it was a brilliant, thought-provoking and fun evening all round. An absolute pleasure to host so many of the community and to have so many inspiring speakers involved!

Want to come to the next Pentawards Meets? Register your interest here!