For Navanit Narayan, whole-time director and CEO of Haldia Petrochemicals, the packaging industry is approaching a point where conventional measures of growth and scale will no longer be enough. Delivering the keynote address at the 13th Specialty Films & Flexible Packaging Global Summit in Mumbai, Narayan outlined three forces that he believes will shape the industry’s journey towards 2035: resilience, circularity and intelligence.

Packaging, he said, has moved well beyond its traditional role as a protective and logistical necessity. “Today, it influences consumer experience, buying behavior, product safety, brand equity, resource efficiency and sustainability,” he said. “It has become an integral part of modern economies and global supply chains.”

The first priority, according to Narayan, is resilience. Recent geopolitical tensions, energy disruptions, logistics bottlenecks and economic uncertainty have exposed the vulnerability of global supply chains. What was once seen primarily as an operational concern has become a strategic business imperative.

“Packaging sits at the intersection of petrochemicals, manufacturing, retail, food security, healthcare and international trade,” Narayan said. “As a result, supply-chain resilience has become a critical competitive differentiator.”

For India, this challenge also represents an opportunity. The country has the scale, entrepreneurial capability and domestic demand required to strengthen its position in global packaging markets. However, Narayan emphasized that the next decade would not simply belong to companies producing larger volumes of material. “It will belong to those who build stronger, smarter and more reliable value chains capable of adapting to disruption,” he said.

The second force is circularity. The discussion around sustainability, Narayan observed, has moved beyond the question of whether it matters. The more pressing question is how quickly the industry can scale sustainable solutions while remaining economically competitive.

He called for a shift away from the traditional linear model of “produce, use and dispose” towards systems in which materials retain their value and remain in productive use for longer. This will require action across the packaging value chain, from designing for recyclability and increasing recycled-content utilization to strengthening collection and recovery infrastructure.

“Collection and recovery infrastructure still remain major challenges in our country,” he noted. The transition will therefore depend on closer collaboration between material manufacturers, converters, brand owners and recyclers, along with investment in advanced recycling technologies and innovative mono-material solutions.

Narayan’s third pillar is intelligence. Artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, automation and digital technologies are expected to reshape packaging operations, not only through smarter machines but through better decisions.

“The next revolution in packaging will not be driven solely by material science,” he said. “It will be driven by the ability to harness data and convert it into better decisions.”

Intelligent manufacturing can improve demand forecasting, production planning, inventory optimization, quality control and supply-chain visibility. Meanwhile, AI-enabled systems can help companies respond faster to market changes while improving cost competitiveness and sustainability performance.

For Narayan, the future will increasingly be defined by connected ecosystems in which materials, machines, data and consumers interact more closely. Organizations that successfully combine material innovation with intelligence-driven innovation, he argued, will be better positioned to lead.

India already has many of the ingredients required to become a global packaging powerhouse: expanding consumption, growing e-commerce penetration, supportive policies and a wider entrepreneurial ecosystem. The challenge now is collaboration.

“Our responsibility extends beyond producing packaging materials or manufacturing packaging products,” Narayan concluded. “It is to build an ecosystem that is resilient enough to withstand disruption, circular enough to preserve resources and intelligent enough to continue creating greater value.”