One of the Federation's original founders in 1992, and three times a director at the leading UK converting trade body since, Searle spent 36 years in the packaging industry, serving in senior roles including md and ceo at companies including CarnaudMetalBox, Riverwood and the Britton Group, before retiring two years ago. While he has “greatly enjoyed” chairing a family-owned property business in the intervening period, he admits that, when asked to succeed Dent as Federation ceo this autumn, the decision to come out of retirement to what Dent says “has sometimes felt like a 24 hour-a-day, seven-day-a week job” was “an absolute no-brainer”. He says: “Having spent virtually my entire career in packaging, it's in my blood, and I viewed the chance to become ceo almost as a duty, albeit a very welcome one, at a time when the sector needs to make its voice heard as perhaps never before.”
Asked to elaborate, Searle says that, with the recent publication of the Stern Report, and ever-mounting Government, “green” group and EU pressure on both consumers and industry to safeguard the environment, the packaging industry, “often unfairly singled out as the cause of a plethora of environmental ills”, needs to “fight back against misinformation and actually shout about its achievements”.
“I genuinely believe the UK packaging sector has very little to defend itself over,” he insists. “UK converters are among Europe's most innovative and enterprising, and, squeezed between retailers demanding ever lower prices and brand owners wanting constant innovation, seemingly often at no cost to themselves, face a tough task to survive, let alone be profitable. Couple these pressures with rising energy costs - which are generally signifcantly higher than elsewhere in Europe - and only the toughest, most resilient and most enterprising converters can really make a good living these days, let alone find the cash need to invest for the future.”
Alongside continuing to strengthen the Federation's close links with key Government Ministers, civil servants and other trade bodies to help fight his converter members' corner on issues like energy costs (which he says now typically account for 10% of a UK converter's net profits), Searle is determined to continue Dent's “excellent work” in highlighting the sector's achievements, both to its supporters and its detractors.
“I am especially keen that proper science and joined-up thinking be applied to the debate on packaging and the environment,” he says. “For instance, while there is still some work to do, with an overall annual packaging recycling rate of around 60% the UK is now on a par with many of our European neighbours; we're no longer the dirty man of Europe on recycling and recovery, as some green groups appear to believe. With landfill space filling up, there needs too to be a more reasoned debate on energy from waste incineration of packaging at end-of-life. Many critics of incineration plants base their 'evidence' on operating practices phased out a decade ago, whereas EFW technology is actually extremely clean today.”
While “not in favour of incineration simply for its own sake”, Searle asks: “Why, unlike many of our more enlightened European neighbours, are we still sending so much material that could be usefully turned into energy to landfill when we could soon be facing substantial energy deficits as a nation.”
Again like Dent, Searle believes educating consumers about packaging, and “where we'd be without it” is a key Federation role. However, he says this “needs to be done by the whole retail supply chain”: “Retailers and brand owners can't simply leave it to converters to spread the message; after all it is they who generally dictate the type and volume of packaging produced. “Converters don't produce packaging just for the sake of it; not only must packs provide adequate protection and be otherwise fit for purpose, but they also have a vital marketing role, and must now conform to a growing raft of legislative criteria too.”
Searle who, having spent much of his early career in production roles, feels he brings with him a special empathy with the everyday operating pressures facing converters, says that, alongside highlighting's packaging's positive benefits, he will also be devoting much of his time over coming months to the issues of carbon tax “and how the sector can best deal with it”, EU directives and their UK enforcement, and the forthcoming revision to the EU's Waste Framework Directive.
“I will certainly have my work cut out,” he concedes, “but I am well-prepared for the challenge and to getting to grips with the many important issues facing an industry which, let us not forget, employs some 100,000 in the UK and contributes around 1% of the nation's GDP.”
