The Retail Institute Briefing conference 2025

Danny joined Valpak’s International Environmental Compliance department in August 2022, where he specialised in research of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, primarily across EU markets. In October 2024 he moved to Valpak’s Policy team, where he monitors UK developments in waste management policies like EPR, plastic tax, deposit return schemes, and waste electricals and battery legislation to keep members informed and compliant.  

Jane is the Managing Director and Chief Scientific Officer of the Food Packaging Forum (FPF), a charitable foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland. She founded FPF in 2012 to share high-quality scientific information about health and environmental impacts of food contact materials such as food packaging. In 2025, FPF has grown to a team of 9 scientists who, with diverse external partners and collaborators, have developed several publicly available evidence-based tools, for example the Understanding Packaging Scorecard or the Database on extractable and migrating food contact chemicals, FCCmigex. Jane is also part of the PlastChem project team and a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty. Jane has a PhD in environmental toxicology and an MSc in environmental science, both from ETH Zurich.

Dr Natalie Moore is Head of Economics at Leeds Business School. She specialises in applied microeconomics, consumer behaviour, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Her research explores how ethical and sustainable product attributes influence consumer decisions, and how businesses can effectively communicate CSR.

 Her PhD examined consumer willingness to pay for CSR-linked products, finding that informed consumers become less price-sensitive and more supportive of human rights-focused initiatives. She also studied the link between corporate social and financial performance, revealing that visible CSR efforts—like charitable involvement—often have stronger reputational and financial benefits.

Natalie applies economic theory to understand how financial uncertainty affects ethical purchasing, highlighting the challenge of aligning commercial goals with sustainability. She actively collaborates with students and businesses, focusing on how firms navigate price, packaging, and purpose in a changing landscape.

Professor Steve McKevitt PhD FCIM  is a UK/US based creative agency and visiting Professor at Leeds Business School. He is the co-owner and Director of Strategy at Relative® a UK/US based creative agency. His clients include some of the world’s biggest brands: Coca Cola, Brown Foreman (Jack Daniels et al), Danone, YouTube, Nike and Sony PlayStation.

Sebastian Clifton-Welker is Key Account Director at Meadow, where he supports leading FMCG and beauty brands in adopting scalable circular packaging technologies. With over 25 years of global experience in the beauty industry, Sebastian has held senior regional and global marketing roles, leading complex brand strategies across skincare, fragrance, and makeup for blue-chip companies including Elizabeth Arden.

Having spent decades driving growth across diverse markets, from Asia to EMEA, Sebastian made the purposeful decision to step outside the corporate world to help the industry transition towards more sustainable and circular business models. Today, he combines his deep commercial expertise with his passion for sustainable innovation, helping brands implement Meadow’s proprietary MEADOW KAPSUL™ system and build future-proof circular packaging solutions.

Dr Thomas Baker is a plastic specialist at WRAP. Thomas has a PhD in Materials Engineering from Loughborough University, alongside experience in processing plastics for recycled content applications and composability.

Thomas has worked across industry R&D, FMCG, policy, and academic research on plastics and systemic circularity challenges. He currently leads workstreams on non-mechanical (chemical) recycling, plastic films and flexibles, and bio-based and compostable plastics at WRAP.