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SÃO PAULO, Brazil—I recently sat down with Luciana Pellegrino, President of the World Packaging Organisation, to learn more about the scope of WPO’s activities.

We here at Packaging Strategies have been in the habit of writing about WPO’s prestigious WorldStar Awards, but I came away from my interview with Pellegrino with a much better understanding of WPO’s programs, initatives, and advocacy.

Listen to the full podcast below ▼

While WPO is based in Vienna, Pellegrino—who is also Executive President of the Brazilian Packaging Association (ABRE)—is based in São Paulo.

“WPO is the global institutional body for the packaging industry and aims to raise the voice for packaging on a global level,” Pellegrino explained.

WPO’s members are national packaging bodies, and the organization now has members representing 66 countries around the world. “And every year there is a new country joining WPO, so we are still growing,” Pellegrino noted. 

For those countries that don’t already have a national packaging body in place, WPO can help with the creation of such an organization. Also, WPO has been cooperating for several years now with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), especially when it comes to projects that aim to enhance a country’s packaging capacity.

Among its initiatives in 2026, WPO is working with the Netherlands-based FSSC Foundation on aligning WPO Save Food Packaging Design Principles as a catalyst for reducing food loss and waste.

As for WPO’s own Design for Recycling Guide, WPO plans to pare down this very large, very technical document to a smaller, more easily digestible version that can be easily translated into different languages.

To learn about WPO’s other plans for 2026 and beyond, check out the full interview with Pellegrino here: