for this opportunity to share my story
with you I’m going to begin in about
2012 I was experiencing this feeling a
lot of you are students here and maybe
you haven’t reached that stage when you
actually experienced a burnout but I’m
sure at some point of time in your life
you’re going to experience this it’s not
a pleasant feeling and it leaves you in
this place which is a situation where
you’re kind of thinking what you should
do ahead and whether life is really
working the way it should so this was
for me it was around 2012 our business
was in very deep trouble we had gone
through a corporate debt restructuring
financially we were not doing well at
all we were trying to do a lot of things
but we went this vicious cycle a
downward spiral where you know we were
not getting the support we needed we
were losing a lot of people in our
business who were not being able to stay
with us as we were not sustaining
ourselves I had also on the personal
front I had recently gone through a
divorce I had two children who I was
trying to build a bond with so there was
a lot happening in that period and I was
questioning whether I’m in the right
place or I should actually give up what
I am doing and start anew maybe take a
sabbatical for a couple of years and
then decide you know what am i is this
really the path I want to be on I had
started working in this business in 1999
when my father decided that he wanted to
travel the world on his motorcycle and
neither of his sons were interested and
he was not even able to sell the
business and go on this journey I
decided to come back and get into it and
I felt maybe that had happened just by
chance
so maybe my path was something else and
my wife now and a guide and dear friend
then asked me a very critical question
and that’s something that changed my
life the question was what would you do
if you could do anything there was no
restrictions there was no money problem
there was no time problem there were no
issues at all what would you really do
and that’s that’s what changed my life
because as soon as I started thinking
if I was to give everything up and start
anew what would it be and the answer was
always around nature I would do
something that would leave the planet
better and maybe that was because I was
brought up in a place which was green I
was brought up in boarding schools that
were around mountains it was deeply
inculcated within me and I started
searching for what my purpose would be
and thankfully around then I also met
another person who influenced my life
greatly this is a person called dr.
Prasad Kuiper and I attended a course
with him and he became a mentor of mine
and he taught me four great things that
led me to where I actually went the
first thing he said is nothing in life
happens by chance if you really think
you just came into this business without
any design then you probably a little
mistaken so there is a design universes
design that happens and you can accept
it or not the second thing he taught me
was that you cannot wish everything that
you’ve gained so far away you have to
take what you’ve gained and build on top
of that you can go to the Himalayas and
try and find the Shambhala and you know
look at it starting anew but there is
already so much that you have why not
build on top of that the third and
probably the most important thing he
taught me was that your purpose is never
about yourself the true happiness that
you experience in life is when you are
actually doing something for others or
you’re trying to serve and so you have
to look at what you can really
contribute that would benefit mankind or
others in your life and the last thing
he taught me was that never think small
think of how you can contribute thousand
eggs you know maybe more than 10,000
eggs of what you’re thinking how how can
you influence more lives or how can you
influence lives deeply so my purpose
became to leave the earth cleaner
through nature-based packaging and why
did this happen what I inherited was a
pulp and paper company which was making
packaging material most of you actually
loo use our packaging material on a
daily basis
of the soaps in our country are wrapped
in that a lot of the sugar sachets are
from our products McDonald’s only uses
our paper for their bags and I hope that
you take away a lot of the food stuff
when you go to McDonald’s because that
helps us sell more but none of you
actually know that we are the people who
are doing this the other problem was
that most of the packaging that we did
got mean there was plastic added to it
so if you look at soap wrappers there’s
plastic on top and plastic in the bottom
and a paper is mainly merely a carrier
of that plastic which also means that
when it’s thrown away it has the same
consequences as any other plastic would
so we were not really influencing that
so we thought you know we have to change
that we are not even creating value
nobody even knows us so we decided that
we were going to do nature based
packaging and what does that mean the
first thing is that nature based
packaging comes from nature it has to
emerge from something which is natural
we were also already using Shuki in
waste to make our path and that was a
great thing because these are the this
is a fiber that is actually going to get
burnt if it’s not used so so we were
already in that space not only that we
were actually using mainly rice husk and
biomass to make electricity we were not
buying any electricity from the
government we were also recovering
almost 95% of our chemicals so we were
really green the way you know
as green as we could possibly be as an
industry the second thing which was
important and we were not doing is that
the packaging has to go back into nature
there has to be an end of life there has
to be something which leads it to you
know get back into Mother Earth and this
was something that we were not managing
because we were totally dependent on our
converters so we decided to work in two
broad areas the first was flexible
packaging and we continue to work deeply
in that area the flexible packaging and
when I say flexible packaging it
basically means the potato chip bags
that you use every day or many other
things which are multi-layered packaging
and they say that you know this flexible
packaging is not even going to go away
in a million years because it’s so
engineered it’s indeed
to really protect the material inside
and the other thing was styrofoam
styrofoam was harming the earth and
again it was non recyclable not
non-compostable so we said you know we
are going to try and find solutions for
these two areas and we are going to find
solutions that our backyard compostable
not just compostable in an industrial
facility or recyclable because we don’t
have any control on what people are
going to do with it
people might throw it and you can’t do
much about it so you might as well
create things which if thrown are
actually going to be beneficial for the
earth the third part of nature based
packaging is solutions have to be based
on the principles of nature and what
does that mean so no nothing packages as
well as nature does you just have to
open your eyes and look around you
as soon as you start looking you find
that there are so many things that
nature offers in packaging the first and
foremost principle for packaging is that
it’s Dharma is to protect now if you
look at a pomegranate which I have shown
on the screen
it’s such a fine fine fine seed it’s so
delicate and it’s so beautifully
protected by this outer covering and you
see the inner layers within the
pomegranate which again separate the
seeds from a banana one another and keep
it protected and this is just one
examples there the example there are so
the other thing that is really important
in packaging is that whenever you
package something you want to know from
the outside what is inside and what we
do in today’s modern world is that we do
a lot of advertising around it there’s a
lot of printing which tells you what is
inside it but in nature it’s very simple
you can never mistake an orange for a
banana that’s the way it is shaped
that’s the texture that’s the whole idea
it’s in your mind as soon as you see a
watermelon you know what it is as soon
as you see a pea you know what is inside
it so you know it is it it is designed
in a way where you know it shows what it
is they are the one thing that we all
look at is expiry date in our packaging
maybe it medicines be it food what does
nature do again very simple the
packaging itself changes color shape
smell and eventually if you open it
taste the unpacking experience has to be
wonderful and you cannot ever compare
the unpacking experience of nature as
you know we unpack Vivi tend to struggle
hard box from Amazon comes you tend to
rip it apart you try to sort of in your
opening potato chip bag you’re trying to
struggle hard or you know trying to tear
it there are so many things we have to
do in the packaging we make look at the
unpacking experience of most of the
things that are made in nature
look at when you peel an orange you put
that thumb in and it’s just sort of fun
peels you look at that banana you you
just take off the top and you and peel
that banana you look at the eggs you
know you press it from the top and to
the bottom nothing is going to happen to
it they say you know you can apply a lot
of pressure and are things would happen
and you take a little you know a little
knife or four can crack it on the side
and there it opens out so there are so
many ways in the nature and packages the
amazing thing is that nature packages
every sort of matter there is the solid
the the what you see on the screen is a
shell of an Avalon it is the hardest
substance you can find on earth there is
liquid packaging you probably drink
coconuts you know many many times and
look at that it’s it carries that liquid
for so many months and years within it
and nothing happens
gas is also covered and packaged in
nature most of the fishes they have an
air bladder
they contain gas and of course gas is
also carried within us our system our
lungs so there is all sorts of packaging
in nature so these are such just some
ideas from nature and this is not it
there is a lot more we can talk about
within nature one of the things is that
it uses only a single source of energy
it’s only uses Sun there is no real you
know high-powered coal going into
producing packaging from nature
water usage is minimal it gives back
what it is taking in so there are so
many things we can also look at when
process goes but so what you know what
are we going to do with that idea so the
main focus for us became how are we
going to make this purpose of making
packaging through nature come alive we
all suffer from this we all get into our
comfort zones we’ve all maybe many of us
have heard of the Stockholm Syndrome
where you find when you fall in love
with your own kidnapper and you start
finding you know we hear of people who
have been in prison and don’t want to
leave prison because they’re so happy
they become so used to that I won’t say
happy so the idea is to shake yourself
and get out of comfort zones or status
Co this is a big one which I had to face
many many times and I probably continue
to face every day I have to remind
myself am I taking this decision from
fear or emp’d am i taking it from a
place of love or connectedness and we
find that you know in our lives we feel
so much fear of the unknown that we
don’t want to disk we don’t want to take
we don’t want to take risks and we get
governed from fear you know what will
people say what will my parents think
will they succeed will does not succeed
will my financial security go away so
you know these are things that keep you
from taking anything making making
anything large happen the last is that
we can talk as much theory as we want we
can harp all about nature we can talk
all about protecting the earth but we
have to make it real we have to have to
we have to find a way to make it happen
so this is the big huzzah what did we
really do which is changing the way we
live and hopefully will make some impact
you know through the work that we
actually do so we ended up creating
something which is written on my t-shirt
it’s a brand called Chuck which produces
compostable packaging to replace
styrofoam mainly and plastics not only
did we do that
we actually ended up challenging a lot
the first was that we went for huge
scale when we went to place order for
our machines our supplier was aghast
because we said we want to buy eight of
the fastest biggest machines and the
most automated machines in the world
they said you should start much smaller
take a small machine experiment with it
and then go big he said no we are trying
to make a pair maybe you’re trying to
make a dent in a huge pile and in order
to do that we have to find a way to sell
it it’s not that we’re going to produce
less so we’re going to try and produce
as much as we can so we set up a
capacity initially of making a million
ton million pieces a day of material and
we said not only are we going to do that
please also take an order for eight
machines the next year and sixteen
machines the year after that so the idea
was how do we go from a million pieces
to to million pieces and then four
million pieces and then we will make
some sort of a impact and this was
mainly done from a place of wanting to
do and be close to the to our purpose
the next assumption that we challenged
was that the we were told that the
market only accepts white especially in
India we are used to wanting things
which are nice and clean and brown
doesn’t look clean but we were again
challenging and being close to our
purpose our purpose was to make things
which were more earth friendly as soon
as you want to make it white you’re
going to add beaching chemicals which
has two problems one is you adding more
chemicals and the second is that you’re
losing more fiber so in the end you are
damaging you you’re not optimizing the
usage of fiber so we said we are going
to challenge that why not make it more
natural-looking as well the third thing
we did was that we challenged the whole
design idea everything you see in the
market is going to be round we are used
to round plates round balls and you know
round serving bowls as well we said now
we are going to study what the problems
are in the market and we are going to
try and solve them when we studied the
market we realized there was a disparate
amount of things which were actually
being used in order to serve and we said
you’re going to be going to learn from
Lego and see how they fit one thing into
another and we’re going to give the
power of usage to the customer the
customer can decide whether they want to
come to compartment or the three
compartment by fitting these two bowls
into everything but that also meant that
geometry had to shift it had to be a
square or a rectangle instead of a
circle the third thing was the business
typically was divided into three broad
areas people made pulp people made
products and they were marketing
companies we said no we’re going to
challenge the whole thing by giving a
cost advantage to our customer and we’re
going to do that by making the pulp
ourselves designing and making the
product ourselves and then also trying
to make a brand and marketing it
ourselves which again was going against
the trade norms so what happened really
well the product has just been launched
and we are trying to market it and we
are we are finding a huge wonderful
response that you know was as many in
many ways unexpected we thought it would
take even longer
but the bigger thing is that I wake up
joyful every morning because of finding
the my purpose I was struggling to get
out of bed I was struggling to get into
work I was motivating myself every day
and Here I am my wife needs to draw me
out of my office every evening to say
you know stop come and spend time with
us because I’m just so engrained in the
mission and the purpose that we are
trying to resolve the second thing is
there’s a lot of recognition which
happened because of our fighting of fear
and doing things differently we wonder
India design mark we’ve just won the red
dot which is the highest design award in
the world we’ve been given various other
accolades and recognitions we have an
amazing team today we were struggling to
keep people within the organization and
today we are being able to find
absolutely amazing people to come and
work with us even the stock market has
changed you know our share price meant
of almost five times in the last year so
I’m going to close with the idea that
you have to you have to think big you
cannot you’re thinking small doesn’t
serve the world at all so you have to
look at what is what is your best what
is the best you can give to the world
and try and live up to that let go of
your fears and and embrace that future
so I’m going to do a little exercise
with you if it’s okay
is it okay you have to close your eyes
now you have to think of a place and
time that you feel the most happy
experience that feeling also think what
are your real talents what do you really
enjoy what what gives you true
now think of how you can convert this to
serve the world around you as soon as
you get this you would have found your
purpose so I wish you all the very best
I hope all of you find your purpose and
all of you can live the joy that you are here to live thank you