IN its commitment to find sustainable alternatives to plastic sachets, Unilever Philippines recently partnered with the Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) to engage students in a competition to design eco-friendly options that can one day replace plastic sachets in the market.
Supporting this initiative is the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.
Unilever invited 75 graduating Industrial Engineering students from TIP to develop ideas for eco-friendly alternatives, introducing them to Unilever’s initiatives under the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. The students formed five groups, and the packaging competition was embedded in the curriculum, serving as the students’ thesis requirement for their course completion.
“This is the first engagement between TIP and Unilever, and this is just the beginning of what we hope to be a lengthy partnership,” said Angelo Lahoz, Senior Vice President of TIP. “This is a rare opportunity for our students to get a glimpse of the professional world and gain firsthand work experience.”
The winning entry was entitled, “Sustainable Packaging Designs of the Sachets of Food and Non-food Products of Unilever Philippines Inc.” With the clever use of chicken feather and corn husk, the team was able to come up with a compostable plastic alternative. This group was led by led by Kris Allen Cruz and composed of members Danielle Samantha Gundayao, Rellie Samson, John Paulo Rosuelo and Neilson Pancho.
“We are very thankful to Unilever for choosing our school. Not all industrial engineering students are given this chance. Our advisers and faculty members were very supportive, as well, providing consultation throughout the proposal and the execution,” Cruz said.
The competing groups dedicated their first semester in research and gathering information for their design proposal. Upon presentation and approval of the design proposal, they went on to creating the prototype.
“The most difficult part was creating the prototype. While we had shared our ideas with the chemical engineering department, we had to manually produce the packaging sample ourselves,” Gundayao explained.
Unilever Philippines also sees the long-term potential of this partnership.
“Unilever Philippines is committed to constantly improving how we do our work, as well as introducing innovations that allow us to provide more environment-friendly packaging options. The ideas and dynamism shown by the students present viable routes for us to take. This is an example of collaboration and innovation in practice,” Research and Development Director Marlo Mangilin from Unilever Philippines stated.