tesa APAC’s Andreas Gunnestrand on Why Sustainable Packaging Needs System Design, Not Just Material Swaps

SINGAPORE, August 31, 2026 : As consumer brands, manufacturers and regulators across Asia-Pacific place greater emphasis on sustainable packaging, the conversation is moving beyond simple material substitution towards full packaging system design, according to Andreas Gunnestrand, President and Regional Manager, tesa tape Asia Pacific.

In an email interview with CarbonWire, Gunnestrand said companies across the region are increasingly assessing packaging not only on performance and cost, but also on recyclability, material efficiency and carbon impact. This shift, he said, requires packaging solutions that can work at industrial scale while supporting end-of-life outcomes.

“The shift is that sustainability is no longer a ‘material swap’ discussion, it is increasingly a packaging system design challenge,” Gunnestrand said. “Across Asia-Pacific, customers are moving at different speeds, but the direction is clear: packaging is being assessed not only on performance and cost, but also on recyclability, material efficiency and carbon impact.”

For tesa, this changing landscape places adhesive technologies at the centre of the packaging transition. Although tapes and adhesives may appear to be small components within a larger packaging system, Gunnestrand said they can have an outsized influence on functionality, recyclability and circularity.

“At tesa, we don’t just supply tapes, we enable better packaging design at scale,” he said. “As an adhesive manufacturer, we see our role as helping customers achieve both functionality and sustainability without compromising throughput, reliability or end-of-life outcomes.”

From Material Swaps to System Design

Gunnestrand’s central argument is that sustainable packaging cannot be reduced to a single input change. Greater recyclability, simpler material structures, recycled or bio-based inputs and lower carbon impact all matter, but each must also work alongside performance, scalability and commercial viability. A solution that is more sustainable in principle but cannot perform reliably at industrial scale will have limited impact, he noted.

This is particularly important in Asia-Pacific, where regulatory requirements, recycling infrastructure, manufacturing capabilities and customer priorities differ significantly across markets. Packaging systems must therefore be adaptable, technically credible and commercially deployable.

For adhesive technology companies, that creates a strategic role. Gunnestrand said design tapes that are built directly into packaging, such as tear tapes, closing tapes and reinforcement tapes, can add functionality while supporting more circular concepts. These tapes can enable easy opening, secure closure and durability through logistics, while also helping companies optimise end-to-end packaging performance and material efficiency.

Adhesives as an Enabling Layer for Circularity

The interview challenges the perception that adhesives are merely auxiliary materials. Gunnestrand described adhesives as an “enabling layer” for circularity, helping companies reduce packaging complexity while maintaining essential functions such as sealing, opening, closing and reinforcement.

In paper-based packaging, selected tesa paper-based design tapes are designed to support mono-material concepts and have been tested for technical recyclability in established paper recycling processes. By reducing the need for material separation and supporting simpler packaging structures, such solutions can help brands and packaging producers move closer to circular economy goals without compromising performance or commercial viability.

“Adhesives are not just a bonding layer, they can be an enabling layer for circularity at scale,” Gunnestrand said. This design-for-recycling approach is likely to become more important as companies seek to simplify packaging structures, shift towards paper-based alternatives, and meet growing customer and regulatory expectations around recyclability and waste reduction.

Translating Global Targets Into Regional Solutions

tesa’s Asia-Pacific strategy is also shaped by the company’s wider sustainability priorities. Gunnestrand said tesa has global targets across emissions, responsible sourcing, materials and circularity. One of those targets is for 70 percent of the materials used in its products and packaging to be recycled or bio-based by 2030. The company is also investing in solvent-free production technologies and solutions designed with end-of-life considerations in mind.

However, he said the real test is whether such innovations solve practical customer challenges. That requires close collaboration with partners, manufacturers and converters to understand substrates, production processes, performance requirements and sustainability goals.

“Our role in Asia-Pacific is not simply to introduce more sustainable products into the market,” Gunnestrand said. “We are focused on translating tesa’s global sustainability targets into practical outcomes for customers across a diverse region, in ways that are technically credible, commercially scalable and aligned with local packaging realities.”

This emphasis on practicality is critical. In Asia-Pacific, packaging supply chains often operate at high speed, high volume and across multiple markets. Solutions must work on production lines, survive logistics networks and perform reliably under real-world conditions.

Performance and Sustainability Cannot Be Separated

A recurring theme in the interview is that sustainable packaging will fail if it does not perform. Gunnestrand said sustainability and performance should not be treated as competing objectives. A more sustainable packaging solution that cannot protect the product, run reliably through production or withstand transport demands will not be adopted meaningfully.

“For us, sustainability is only meaningful when it delivers uncompromised performance,” he said. “A solution must meet the same high standards of protection, reliability and efficiency to be successfully adopted at scale.”

This is especially relevant for e-commerce, logistics and industrial customers, where packaging failure can create more waste, product damage and operational inefficiency. In this sense, durability and product protection are not separate from sustainable packaging, they are part of it.

tesa’s approach, Gunnestrand said, is to engineer sustainability and performance together. That means looking at raw materials, adhesive formulation, production processes, application performance and end-of-life considerations as one system, rather than treating sustainability as an added attribute.

Why ThaiPDA Matters for Sustainable Design

The conversation also touched on tesa’s participation in the Thai Packaging Design Awards 2026, where the company sponsored the tesa Special Award.

Gunnestrand said platforms such as ThaiPDA are valuable because they bring together designers, students, brands and industry partners to explore how packaging can be designed more responsibly from the start. The tesa Special Award recognised packaging concepts that creatively integrated tesa paper-based design tapes to enhance functionality, structural performance and visual appeal while embracing sustainable design principles.

For tesa, the role of such platforms goes beyond showcasing products. Gunnestrand said participation is about demonstrating leadership in the packaging ecosystem, encouraging practical design thinking around circularity, functionality and material efficiency, and supporting ideas that are creative, technically feasible and aligned with sustainability goals.

This is an important point for Asia-Pacific’s packaging sector. Circular packaging is not only a material challenge, but also a design challenge. Decisions made at the design stage can determine how easily packaging can be used, recovered, separated and recycled.

Anticipating Regulation and Customer Expectations

Gunnestrand also warned that Asia-Pacific should not be treated as a homogeneous market. Regulation will continue to evolve at different speeds across the region, but customer requirements are already growing around recyclability, material efficiency, circularity and transparency over environmental impact.

He argued that leading companies should not design only for the regulation they face today. Packaging development cycles, manufacturing investments and supply chains operate over many years, so companies need to anticipate where requirements and customer expectations are heading and build adaptability into packaging design now.

For adhesive manufacturers, this means working across the value chain. Gunnestrand said no single material supplier can create circular packaging alone. Adhesive manufacturers, packaging designers, converters, recyclers, brands and policymakers need to understand how their decisions affect the performance of the entire system.

The Next Three to Five Years

Looking ahead, Gunnestrand expects the sustainable packaging conversation to move beyond simply using “more sustainable materials” towards redesigning packaging systems for circularity, with stronger evidence requirements for sustainability claims.

He pointed to several trends likely to shape the next phase: paper-based packaging growth, mono-material design, higher demand for recycled and bio-based inputs, greater carbon transparency, and solutions that remain compatible with existing recycling infrastructure and high-speed production environments.

“Adhesives will become more strategic precisely because they sit at the interface between materials,” he said. “The right adhesive technology can enable simpler packaging structures that are recyclable, reliable and scalable, and that is where we aim to lead.”

By 2030, Gunnestrand said success for tesa tape Asia Pacific should be measured in two ways: progress within its own portfolio and the impact it enables for customers.

Globally, tesa aims for 70 percent of the materials used in its products and packaging to be recycled or bio-based by 2030. By the end of 2025, recycled and bio-based materials accounted for 32 percent of materials used in its products, while the company had reduced fossil virgin plastics in its packaging by 63 percent, surpassing its original target of 50 percent by the end of 2025.

In Asia-Pacific, Gunnestrand said success means using adhesive expertise to help customers redesign packaging systems, reduce material complexity, improve recyclability and make circularity commercially viable at scale.

For the wider packaging industry, the message is clear. Circularity will not be delivered by one material, one regulation or one company acting alone. It will require system-level thinking, technical evidence and collaboration across the value chain. In that system, adhesives may be small in size, but their strategic relevance is growing.