Richard Akkermans is the European R&D Packaging Sustainability Manager at Mondelez International. He studied for his D.Phil (a.k.a. PhD) in Physical Chemistry at the University of Oxford, UK and started his career at Mars UK in R&D in 1999. Armed with 25 years’ experience in leading cross-functional FMCG innovation teams, for the last 4 years he has led Mondelez’s packaging sustainability programme for Europe, focusing on Design for Recyclability, Virgin Plastic Reduction and collaboration to improve systems for the recycling of flexible plastic packaging.