Vaibhav Jha, CEO of Ester Industries, used his presentation at the 13th Specialty Films & Flexible Packaging Global Summit in Mumbai to make a case for moving beyond compliance-led sustainability. For him, the next phase of flexible packaging will depend on technology that can deliver genuine circularity at commercial scale.
From compliance to circularity
Jha argued that sustainability needs to be viewed as more than a regulatory obligation. “Sustainability is not a choice, it’s a social responsibility for all of us,” he said, pointing to the growing gap between resource consumption and the planet’s ability to regenerate them.
Regulation is certainly accelerating, but Jha also sees consumer demand becoming an important driver. He cited research indicating strong consumer interest in sustainable products and highlighted recyclability as the attribute most closely associated with sustainability.
That makes the challenge for packaging somewhat more specific. “Now is the time to push the envelope on technology and innovation to really aim for true circularity,” Jha said.
Mechanical recycling and other established approaches have helped move the industry forward, but he believes they cannot by themselves address the next level of the challenge. The industry needs technologies that can bring materials back into high-value applications rather than simply moving them into lower-value ones.
Jha drew parallels with developments in other sectors, where brands supported emerging recycling technologies through advance commercial commitments and offtake agreements. Such commitments, he suggested, can give technology developers the confidence to invest and scale.
Designing for the next cycle
For flexible packaging, the starting point is design. Jha noted that natural systems work in cycles, with the output of one process becoming the input for another. Packaging needs to adopt a similar principle.
He sees particular potential in PET-based structures, especially because around 65% of flexible packaging goes into food-contact applications. The challenge is to introduce recycled content without compromising performance or economics.
Ester, he said, has developed technology to integrate recycled PET into film production while optimizing manufacturing processes and costs. The company currently has around 30,000 tonnes of RPET capacity directed towards film, according to Jha.
He also outlined Ester’s work on mono-material PE structures, including a patented technology intended to combine recyclability with downgauging and improved cost competitiveness.
The larger ambition is ELITe (Ester Loop Infinite Technologies), a 50:50 joint venture between Ester Industries and Loop Industries.. Ester is developing a chemical recycling facility in Gujarat with a planned capacity of 70,000 tonnes per year. Jha said the technology can chemically break down polyester-heavy laminates into virgin-like monomers, which can subsequently be used to produce recycled PET. The facility is designed primarily for textile-to-textile recycling but will also support bottle-to-bottle and laminate-to-laminate recycling, strengthening polyester circularity across multiple sectors.
The project, he said, represents an investment of more than INR 1,000 crore, with commissioning expected in around one and a half years. Jha also pointed to commercial offtake agreements already signed with major brands as evidence that the technology is moving beyond the development stage.
Ultimately, Jha believes the economics of sustainability need to be considered across the entire value chain rather than at the film stage alone. A premium at the raw-material or film level, he argued, can become relatively small by the time the finished product reaches the consumer.
His message to the packaging industry was therefore straightforward: “Innovation is a necessity now for achieving meaningful sustainability goals.” For flexible packaging, the next step may be less about finding another incremental improvement and more about building the technologies and commercial partnerships needed to make circularity work at scale.
