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 3 and a half years he has led Mondelez’s packaging sustainability programme for Europe, focusing on Design for Recyclability, Virgin Plastic Reduction and collaborations to improve systems for the recycling of flexible plastic packaging.