As part of our Sustainability Awards Finalist Interview series, we spoke to Pulpatronics about its ‘metal-less and chipless’ RFID tag, nominated in the Pre-Commercialized Climate category.
You’re a finalist in the Sustainability Awards 2024. Congratulations! To start off, could you summarise your entry, in less than 50 words?
Pulpatronics develops sustainable RFID tags. Unlike conventional RFID tags that comprise a metal antennae, silicone chip and layers of adhesives, our laser technology enables the RFID tag to be metal-less and chipless, allowing for more natural resources to be preserved, a simpler manufacturing process and a more circular economy through recycling.
Why do you think the judges were impressed with your entry? Tell us about what is innovative about your project and/or about its impact on packaging sustainability.
Our RFID technology requires significantly fewer steps and components than current conventional ones. Rather than extracting resources from the environment, we simply utilize what already exists and provide more added value in an accessible way.
Optimizing packaging usually revolves around reducing the weight and volume, therefore, any added label or sticker can significantly add costs and increase the environmental impact. For us, we understand the large benefits that RFID technology can provide for inventory management, and we are also aware of the potential consequences of adding more labels.
With our technology, we’d love to eventually integrate our laser head directly into manufacturing lines so that we can create RFID tags right at the source of production.
Finally, can you tell us about the ongoing development of your project, e.g. how your innovation/initiative has been received by the industry, or what the next steps are in commercialization/product development?
We recently closed our pre-seed funding round, which allowed us to grow our R&D team, so we have been further developing various aspects of our technology. We have been receiving inbound requests from multinational brands to trial our tags, so we’re in the process of scaling up our lab-scale tags to pilot-scale.
We will have a few running pilots in mid-2025! We are always looking for more partnerships, so please reach out to us if you’re interested in joining our journey to make more sustainable RFID tags.
The winners of the Sustainability Awards 2024 will be announced at the Sustainable Packaging Summit, taking place in Amsterdam on 12-13 November. The Summit mobilizes leaders of the FMCG value chain, policymakers, NGOs, recyclers and investors to collaborate, remove barriers and identify opportunities on the road to sustainable transformation.
To learn more or register, visit: https://www.packagingsummit.earth/2024
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