02 Jan Proposals for 2024

 By Jordi López, General Manager of RIEUSSET

A few days ago, during the celebration of the Nit del Packaging (Packaging Night) , an emblematic event of the packaging industry organized by the Packaging Cluster, I was discussing with some of the attendees what 2024 will bring us, and our conclusion was that this has become more and difficult to predict, because in an increasingly global world we are faced with distant events that directly affect our local economy.

2023 has been a more “regular” year –I no longer say normal because normality, as we knew it, will never return– in which we have lived with the war in Ukraine, keeping an eye on the costs of electricity and gas in the hope that nothing would happen to shake their price, with the background of a pandemic that, at times, seems not to have happened at all and with an economy that, despite the winds that announced a setback, has remained relatively stable even in Spain, even with the different municipal, autonomous and regional elections and the atmosphere that we have experienced due to them. And no, I am not forgetting what the plastic tax has meant, since 2023 will be remembered as the year in which we were the first country in the European Union to implement a tax that has not only reduced our competitiveness, but has also meant an organizational effort in which many resources have been used to comply with a law that we have had to interpret, since not even the Ministry of Finance is clear about it.

Rieusset’s proposals for 2024

At Rieusset, we have been working for years to answer to all our stakeholders who demand from us both economic results and to improve the environmental and social impact on our surroundings. We therefore remain faithful to the roadmap we have drawn up, which we adapt –and I should say more and more frequently– to the continuous changes requested by our environment.

Rieusset maintains its purpose of “being a safe, healthy and sustainable industry” that with the focus on continuous improvement will continue to work on consolidating and reviewing the standards implemented and seek to improve our processes and products in order to satisfy our clients in particular, and all stakeholders in general.

Therefore, in 2024 we will continue to review our Quality, Food Safety, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety policies to ensure that they keep us on the right track, and we will make an even greater commitment to continuous improvement projects where we will rethink production paradigms that have been in place for a long time in our company, such as make-to-order manufacturing, and move to make-to-delivery manufacturing. This will be a major challenge as it will not only involve a reorganization of how we work but also a change in our corporate culture.

In the GEROSA group we want to avoid greenwashing, and although we are not going  to stop producing what our clients ask for, we will try to convince them with the objective data –or should I say “more objective” than what we had available until now– provided by the life cycle analysis of the different products, as well as insisting on the reduction of emissions from our processes. In 2024 we will conduct a new energy audit to see where we stand after all we have done over the last eight years and to understand what more we can do on this never-ending journey.

We will also continue to innovate in products to improve the carbon footprint at a price consumers are willing to pay without affecting the machinability of these products at our clients’ facilities.

In 2021 we began collaborations with schools from our surroundings and with associations that work with groups that have difficulties entering the labor market, which has made it possible for some of their members to do internships at our facilities and even work with us. In 2022 we began sponsoring the Santa Perpètua de Mogoda rhythmic gymnastics team, which has allowed its athletes to participate on behalf of their team in competitions leading them to win the Catalan Championship in 2023. In this aspect as well, we will continue to work to help our environment improve with us.

Finally, it should be mentioned that our focus does not end on the company itself, but rather on how the company can influence the entire supply chain so that everyone may adopt good governance policies to improve both their products and their manufacturing processes in an environment characterized by equal, fair and non-discriminatory treatment, among other aspects.