CW: Can you tell me a little bit about your background?
Ericson: I’m proud to have spent over 35 years leading purpose-oriented businesses for global corporations. Prior to joining PPG, I was the president of SUEZ Chemical Monitoring and Solutions after SUEZ acquired General Electric’s Water Services Company. At General Electric, I helped to lead the organization’s water purification efforts while managing the growth and profitability for the $1.2 billion business before leading the sale to SUEZ in 2017.


A big part of my career also includes a 20-year tenure at Alstom S.A. where I ultimately was promoted to president and CEO of Alstom’s North American operations. While at Alstom, I helped lead the sustainable energy efforts, which was a portfolio of renewable and high efficiency power generation products. And at the request of the U.S. Energy Secretary, I chaired a study assessing the value achieved, gaps remaining and the path forward for global carbon capture and storage.

CW: What are your responsibilities and goals in your current position?
Ericson: My goals are different for the two business units I lead: packaging and specialty coatings and materials. With Packaging Coatings, we’re consistently working to grow our market share in the global metal coatings business on the basis of differentiated and sustainable coatings, including our non-BPA and other sustainably advantaged technologies.

With specialty coatings and materials, we have focused on PPG’s high-end technical offerings and working to successfully commercialize and grow our premium technology segments like performance silicas, high index optical monomers and energy-efficient, high-definition OLEDs for digital display.

CW: What is PPG’s sustainability mission?
Ericson: At PPG, our sustainability mission is summarized in six core values:

1. Operate safe, healthful workplaces that value diversity, promote teamwork and reward performance;
2. Conduct business and operations in an ethical and compliant manner;
3. Minimize the impact of our operations on the environment;
4. Deliver inventive products and solutions that help our customer maximize the performance of their assets, minimize environmental impact and protect the environment;
5. Partner with suppliers and customers to create value; and
6. Deliver positive value in the communities where we operate.

CW: In what specific ways are you making your packaging products more sustainable?
Eriscon: Sustainability has been a common denominator for me throughout my entire career—and I’m proud to continue that here at PPG. It’s important that both of my business units deliver innovations that reflect the organization’s commitment to consumer safety and environmental sustainability. For instance, in Packaging, all of our new products focus on eliminating materials of concern; increasing solids ratios; shifting from solvent-based to water-based technologies; and improving our formulations to enhance the key sustainability drivers for our can making customers like lowering coatings cure temperatures to reduce energy consumption. All of this responsibly enables the viability of the infinitely recyclable metal package as it is called on to pack an ever-wider variety of packaged goods.

PPG SafeAssure™ is our signature initiative for enhancing the consumer-safety side of sustainability in our packaging coatings. As a central fixture of our new product development process, SafeAssure™ prescribes stringent protocols for screening starting chemicals as well as those that could potentially affect the packaged food or beverage. The overarching goal of the SafeAssure program is to support our canmaking customers (and their brand customers) in demonstrating food safety.

CW: How are brand owners and food and beverage packaging suppliers evolving along with the growing regulatory challenges they face and how is PPG helping them do so?
Ericson: While eliminating BPA from packaging coatings has been the most visible and publicized issue in the industry in recent years, the list of “materials of concern” cited by regulators and NGOs around the world is always evolving. This continues to present a tremendous challenge for brand owners and companies throughout their supply chain as they aim to stay ahead of consumer safety concerns. 

At PPG, we support brand owners and packaging suppliers in two significant ways. At the customer level, we provide counsel and deliver solutions for the most immediate and urgent issues one may be seeking to address—whether it’s responding to a specific regulatory mandate, packaging a new product or helping to craft a more forward-thinking sustainable packaging strategy.

On a broader industry level, our scientists, engineers and experts constantly pursue a much broader mission, which is to think beyond meeting regulatory mandates and to concentrate long-term on developing coatings that enhance and promote human health and safety, while doing the same for the planet as a whole.

CW: How is PPG helping customers to navigate the complexities of performance, sustainability and growing demand? And how is the packaging coatings segment playing a part?
Ericson: The beverage industry is increasingly launching its products in cans as the conversation around sustainability continues to become increasingly important. In fact, 75% of all beverages are now packaged in cans. With that in mind, PPG is investing in coatings innovation that holds up to a variety of requirements to meet the needs of numerous products—all with the same technology. These cross-functional solutions meet the specific packaging coatings demands of our customers, from products that increase line efficiencies or boost barrier protection to those that enhance consumer experience with, or sentiment for, a particular brand.

PPG is one of the world’s leading companies when it comes to monitoring consumer trends, fashions and taste, especially in relation to color. That means, in addition to helping brand owners and their supply chain partners meet the technical challenges of operating their businesses, we also are experts in helping them meet the challenges of branding and differentiating their products with products like our PPG iSense™ line of specialty external coatings for on-shelf differentiation.

• As a packaging coatings company, how can PPG help canmakers meet the expanding demand for aluminum beverage cans, especially in light of the industry’s aging equipment/infrastructure?
PPG has formulated and manufactured packaging coatings for more than 80 years and has long-established relationships with many of the world’s leading brand owners, canmakers and packaging suppliers. Our technical service team has experience in every conceivable type of packaging plant and the variety of challenges they present. We have experts who can walk into a noisy can plant and just by listening, begin to diagnose what’s not working correctly. Similarly, they apply their vast knowledge to ensure that can lines and the coatings applied are delivering maximum efficiency.

Over the long term, our goal is to develop coatings formulations that perform well in the broadest possible range of environments, packing the widest range of goods, while minimizing regulatory concerns through improved technologies.