Gian de Belder

Gian is a principal scientist and packaging technologist at Procter & Gamble (P&G), one of the largest consumer packaged goods companies in the world.

In his 20-year career at P&G, Gian has helped drive R&D into sustainable packaging across the company. With experience in upstream technologies, sustainable resins and EU funding projects, Gian has been involved in developing key partnerships across the value chain and managing open innovation through P&G’s Connect & Develop Programme.

To help drive cross-sector collaboration, Gian is a board member of Petcore Europe (the association representing the complete PET value chain in Europe), co-chairman of the Packaging Task Force at the A.I.S.E. (International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products). Gian is also active in other industry associations such as the FostPlus (Belgian green dot), Expra (Extended Producer Responsibility Alliance) and others.

Most recently, Gian is helping lead a pioneering project “HolyGrail” on the standardisation of markers/ watermarks in packaging (barcode for recycling), to increase efficiencies in high-quality sorting and to strive for higher recycling rates, as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative.

In 2018, Gian has also been official juror for PackTheFuture (Elipso+IKV = German and French association for plastics packaging and films) and Dow DuPont Packaging Innovation Awards ; in 2019 he is juror for Packaging Europe’s Sustainability Awards. He has been elected finalist for the 2018 and 2019 EU Plastic Recycling Ambassador (Plastic Recyclers Europe) and actually received this title in 2019. Gian is 44 years old and holds a degree in Polymer & Composites Engineering from Leuven University. He was born in Belgium and is married with 2 children. He is a big fan of sports (running/ squash/cycling) and travel.