Innovate UK’s Global Research & Innovation in Plastics Sustainability conference 2024 (GRIPS 2024), delivered this year in partnership with the British Plastics Federation, was a resounding success, bringing some 600 delegates together to hear about the latest research, innovations and initiatives driving plastics sustainability and circularity.
Watch all the session recordings here.
Now in its fourth year, GRIPS 2024 was sponsored by The Worshipful Company of Horners and Plastics Europe and hosted by the University of Sheffield’s Grantham Institute for Sustainable Futures. With over 50 speakers in the packed three-stream programme, the conference drew plastics experts and innovators from across academia and industry, as well as third sector organisations, industry bodies and policy makers.
The three conference streams – sustainability, recycling and materials – covered all the hottest topics from the latest innovations in depolymerisation for recycling to reuse and refill initiatives, new business models and behaviour change, and developments in UK and global plastics policy.
With net zero a key underpinning theme for the event, Peter Clark, Head of Chemistry & Industrial Biotechnology at Innovate UK Business Connect, also unveiled the ‘Sustainable Carbon Ambition for the UK Chemicals Industry’ ‘Sustainable Carbon Ambition for the UK Chemicals Industry’ report. This pivotal report highlights the opportunity for the sector to diversify away from virgin fossil carbon and toward other sustainable feedstocks.
