Global Research and Innovation in Plastics Sustainability Conference 2024 (GRIPS 2024)

Recordings now available

Stream 1: Sustainability – click here to watch

• Session 1 – Opening Plenary – Plastics as a part of our sustainable future
• Session 2 – Driving Plastic Packaging Sustainability: the critical building blocks
• Session 3 – Reuse and Refill: are we at a tipping point?
• Session 4 – Panel Session – International drivers shaping future polymer sustainability

Stream 2: Recycling – click here to watch

• Session 1 – Recycling: infrastructure and opportunities
• Session 2 – Depolymerisation for enhanced circularity
• Session 3 – AI: the answer to improving polymer sustainability?
• Session 4 – Poster session and Horners awards

Stream 3: Materials – click here to watch

• Session 1 – Additives: a new frontier
• Session 2 – Green chemistry: the future
• Session 3 – New Business models and behaviour change
• Session 4 – Plastics in Aquatic Environments

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Why visit?

Now in its fourth year, the Global Research and Innovation in Plastics Sustainability Conference (GRIPS 2024) returns with a focus on bringing together companies, individuals and change-makers to highlight the best of UK – and select international – innovations and business models that will lead to more sustainable plastics.

This one-day hybrid event will be hosted by the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures with support from the Worshipful Company of Horners.

What’s on

Our hybrid conference focuses on the positives of plastics whilst ensuring they are less likely to reach landfill sites, end up incinerated or become fugitive in the environment. The Grantham Centre’s academic research tells us that switching from plastic to alternate materials will, in most cases, increase carbon emissions and therefore hasten climate change.

Over three parallel streams consisting of presentations and panel discussions, GRIPS 2024 highlighted innovations and core topics, including:

• plastic packaging – including reuse
• new recycling infrastructure – both mechanical and depolymerisation
• the role of AI in plastics sustainability
• green chemistry for polymers of the future
• emerging business models
• the role of additives in plastics sustainability
• the impact of legislation
• mitigating the effect of plastic on our oceans
• the world view of plastic – Global Plastics Treaty

Keynote sessions were delivered by the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures plastics sustainability experts: Professor Tony Ryan, Professor Rachael Rothman and Dr Fanran Meng. These were engaging, informative and showed that plastics are valuable in a sustainable future.

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