Rethinking Materials Agenda 2027

A new material can be designed for a circular economy and still struggle to compete in today's market. Regulation, recovery infrastructure, and purchasing incentives do not always move together. Which policy, infrastructure and purchasing levers would let recycled materials compete with cheaper virgin ones, and how should cost and risk be shared while those markets develop?

One problem, competing priorities and thirty minutes to find a way forward. Mixed teams must balance cost, performance, and circularity, then make their case in sixty seconds before a winner is chosen. Practise making a real materials trade-off under pressure and turning it into a proposal that would stand up to buyers and investors.

Can next-generation barriers make flexible packaging safer and more sustainable? This workshop will explore coatings and materials that combine product protection with circularity, safer material choices, and new packaging designs, including high-barrier fibre-based solutions.

A material's commercial prospects depend on more than its performance: claims need evidence, suppliers need data, and recovery needs infrastructure. Bring your questions on the EU’s packaging regulation (PPWR) and extended producer responsibility (EPR) and leave knowing what your materials and suppliers need in place, how to evidence bio-based and compostable claims, and where the rules could open a route to market.

Bring the material question your team is still trying to resolve. In this practitioner-guided clinic, AI discovery and screening tools meet a real formulation or performance challenge. Leave with an understanding of what these tools can predict about your own material, where they fall short, and how they could fit into your R&D process.

The materials economy depends on resources and natural systems whose limits do not appear on a purchase order. Yet choices made in packaging, textiles and consumer goods determine how much pressure those systems face. What would change if planetary boundaries became part of every design brief, purchasing decision and investment test? And where should businesses act first?

Before a product is made, design choices have already shaped much of its end-of-life fate. Material simplicity, performance, and the realities of secondary feedstock must sit alongside creative ambition. How can a product's circular materials become part of its appeal rather than a compromise? And what must designers understand about the systems expected to recover them?

Picture recycled fibres arriving with the quality, consistency, and price that commercial production requires. Getting there depends on collection and sorting as much as processing technology, and on buyers willing to commit. What collection, sorting and processing improvements would make recycled fibres competitive on quality, cost, and consistency?

Imagine choosing a lower-impact material because it performs better, not despite a compromise. Across sports, footwear, and workwear, that proposition must stand up to demands for strength, comfort, protection and durability. Where do lower-impact materials already perform in lab and real-word testing, and what design, processing and supplier capacity does it takes to move them from trial into production?

Imagine plastic that reaches the sea breaking down through enzymes built into the material. The promise raises difficult questions about time, conditions, and consequences for marine life. How closely does test evidence reflect the ocean itself? And where could enzyme-enabled bioplastics complement prevention and collection without becoming a reason to weaken either?

A product can be repairable and still be replaced. The customer's decision depends on price, turnaround, convenience, and confidence in the result, not regulation alone. What price, turnaround, warranty and access to parts, tools and diagnostics would turn repair from a legal right into a service customers choose, and who is best placed to provide it?

Fast forward to 2050. Imagine the materials now considered novel becoming ordinary in packaging, fashion, mobility, and everyday products, with recovery built into their design. Which technologies reached scale, and what had to change across investment, skills, and infrastructure to get there? And which decisions in the next two to five years would make that future credible?

Removing a chemical of concern is only the first test; the replacement must also perform without introducing another problem. Three lightning talks put PFAS-free materials, flame retardants, and lower-footprint chemistries under scrutiny. What evidence distinguishes a better alternative from a regrettable substitution? And when does an incremental improvement deliver meaningful progress on safety, cost, and life-cycle impact?

The lab result is promising; the market test starts here. Seven lab- or pilot-stage start-ups have three minutes to pitch and two minutes to answer questions. Which ideas solve a problem customers will pay to address? And what evidence turns technical potential into a credible route to market for investors and brand innovation teams?

AI promises a faster search for materials that balance performance, safety, cost and sustainability, but incomplete data can weaken the answer. Where can predictive tools genuinely shorten development? And what evidence is needed before brands trust their recommendations on formulation, environmental impact, and regulatory screening?

The original plan meets commercial reality. Progress, setbacks, and difficult decisions can change both a materials business's direction and its next opportunity. A returning innovator shares the decisions that changed course, and the signals that tell you when to hold firm and when to pivot.

Think beyond conventional material properties. Engineered structures open possibilities for thinner lenses, lighter components and new ways to control sound—but a compelling demonstration is not yet a commercially viable product. Discover where metamaterials, whose engineered structure gives them properties chemistry alone cannot, are already reaching products, and what must change in cost, manufacturing and testing before they reach yours.

A material can perform as intended while the project around it struggles. Financing, plant utilisation, and customer decisions can carry as much weight as the technology. Looking back at a project that scaled, stalled, or changed direction, which assumptions held up? And what should have been tested before the next commitment was made?

The pitch is over; delivering on it is the harder part. One year later, a returning innovator brings a tangible milestone and the evidence behind it. What survived contact with commercial reality? And what can an unexpected lesson reveal about the time, cost and persistence needed to move a materials business forward?

Customer interest is a start; the first order is a turning point. Getting there takes testing, revisions, and a convincing case for switching materials. Follow one supplier’s route from trial to revenue and discover what the customer needed to see before signing the first order.

The pilot works. The next test is whether production, customers and capital can move together. Five materials companies have three minutes to make their case and four minutes to answer questions. See which companies are ready to scale, judged on continuous production, qualified customers, committed volumes and funding for the next stage.

The material performs, the trial succeeds, and the sustainability team is convinced. Yet the order never comes. Between technical approval and a purchasing commitment sit competing demands on price, product protection, production, and risk. Hear directly from buyers what evidence on performance, safety, cost and end of life turns a successful trial into repeat orders, and what keeps that commitment alive when budgets tighten.

The technology is proven, but the first commercial plant remains unfunded. Buyers want supply certainty; investors want committed demand. What combination of public and private money, from grants and guarantees to loans and equity, are getting first-of-a-kind plants built, and what mix of offtake price certainty and policy signals make a project investable? How should public support step back as revenues grow without leaving the next stage exposed?

The debate becomes more useful when it meets the problem on your desk. Across ten tables, small groups will work through challenges spanning regulation, material claims, design, recovery, finance, and adoption. Pick a table on regulation and evidence, design and recovery, or money and markets and leave with practical answers from people facing the same obstacle.

Critical raw materials support electrification and digital infrastructure, yet valuable scrap can leave the region that needs the recovered supply. Keeping it closer requires more than an export restriction. Why does battery waste, aluminium scrap and e-waste leave the region? What would make processing closer to home viable, and how do export restrictions help or backfire?

A fibre pack can look like a simpler choice, but the answer depends on what it protects, where its feedstock comes from and what happens after use. Where does fibre genuinely outperform plastic, reuse, or other alternatives? And who will fund the collection, sorting and reprocessing needed to turn recyclability into recovery at scale?

The circularity pledge is clear, but the shelf still tells a single-use story. Price, convenience, product protection, and store operations shape what retailers can change. What would make reuse, refill and take-back work across brands and retailers, and what policy certainty does a retailer need before investing beyond trials?

The pitches are complete, and the evidence must now decide the result. The winner is revealed, along with the proof points that separated it from the field and what they signal to investors, buyers, and future applicants.