Green Rules Are an Opportunity, Not a Burden: Sustainability Chief

 

Tetra Pak's Patinya Silsupadol says Thailand's edge lies in closing the rules gap between big and small firms.

 

As pressure mounts on industries to treat climate action as systemic rather than a compliance exercise, Tetra Pak Thailand is pointing to a philosophy it says predates the current wave of ESG regulation by decades.

 

For Patinya Silsupadol, head of sustainability at Tetra Pak Thailand, the case for climate action was never abstract. It was written into the company's founding purpose more than 70 years ago, when its founder identified an early form of inequality: uneven access to safe, quality food caused by weak production, storage and transport systems. 

 

That original problem, Patinya argues, is why Tetra Pak frames sustainability around three linked pillars — food, environment and people — rather than emissions figures alone.

 

Within the environmental pillar, the company organises its work around three areas: resource efficiency through a circular economy, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and minimising broader ecological impact — a category the company used to call "biodiversity" before simplifying the term for wider public understanding.

 

 

 

Regulation as a head start, not a hurdle

As carbon-related trade rules tighten globally — from the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to expanding ESG disclosure requirements — Patinya says Tetra Pak views the shift as an opportunity rather than a threat, largely because the company has invested in environmental practice for more than three decades. 
 

 

 

That head start, he argues, means compliance costs less and takes less time than it would for a company starting from zero, reinforcing his belief that firms which treat sustainability as core strategy, rather than an afterthought, gain a lasting advantage.

 

The same logic extends to suppliers.

 

Tetra Pak says every material in its beverage cartons carries certification, layered from general industry standards up to environmental ones: paperboard has held Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification in Thailand for more than a decade, aluminium sourcing is verified under the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative to rule out practices such as child labour, and plant-based plastic components are certified under Bonsucro, which governs responsible sugarcane cultivation.

 

 

Pushing sustainability down and up the chain

Because Tetra Pak sells processing machinery, spare parts, consumables and services alongside packaging, Patinya says the harder task now is shifting the entire commercial relationship, not just the product. 

 

That means engaging customers more often on emerging rules so that they, in turn, can set higher, more environmentally conscious purchasing standards—reversing the traditional dynamic in which Tetra Pak simply responds to buyer specifications.

 

At industry level, the company works through groups under the Federation of Thai Industries, including networks focused on supply chains and carbon neutrality, to build shared frameworks and feed proposals into government policy. 

 

 

The underlying motivation, Patinya says, is fairness: without common rules, early movers who invest in cleaner practices can find themselves at a competitive disadvantage against slower-moving rivals — a dynamic he believes discourages otherwise willing companies from acting alone.
 

 

 

 

From aluminium foil to fibre

On product innovation, Tetra Pak points to its fibre-based barrier technology, which is designed to replace the ultra-thin aluminium layer that protects contents inside beverage cartons. 

 

Commercially launched first in Spain, Portugal and South Korea, the technology lifts the share of renewable material in a carton from roughly 70 percent to as much as 90 percent. 

 

Machinery redesigned since 2020 also incorporates water recycling, heat-exchange energy recovery and lower overall energy use, changing Patinya's frames as design choices with direct cost benefits, not just environmental ones. The company says it invests upward of 100 million euros a year in design-related research.

 

Even so, Thailand's carton recycling rate remains modest, at an estimated 3 to 5 percent, according to Painya — a gap he attributes not to a lack of technology, since sorting and shredding capacity already exists domestically, but to the need for deeper coordination across the recycling industry to scale it up.

 

 

 

The missing piece: A clear regulatory framework

When asked to identify the single biggest barrier to Thailand's industrial transition, Patinya points not to a lack of awareness – which he says has reached small and medium-sized enterprises – but to the absence of clear regulatory frameworks and standardised metrics. 

 

Citing domestic carbon pricing as a prime example, he argues that without such benchmarks, small manufacturers cannot calculate the return on investment for emission-cutting technologies, ultimately delaying capital deployment from the very firms that need support most.

 

He also contrasts Thailand's public hearing process, largely conducted online, with Vietnam's more direct model, where the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry runs structured workshops pairing specific experts with businesses.

 

 

Independent research lends weight to this diagnosis. 

 

The World Bank's 2025 Thailand Country Climate and Development Report estimates the country will need an additional US$219 billion in climate-related investment over the next 25 years — equivalent to about 2.4 percent of cumulative GDP — and finds that a well-calibrated carbon price, paired with sustained investment, could put the country on track for carbon neutrality by 2050 and net zero by 2065. 

 

Without stronger adaptation, the same report warns that floods, heat stress, water shortages and coastal erosion could shrink GDP by 7 to 14 percent from baseline by mid-century. 

 

The Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) has separately flagged a financing gap underneath these targets: green loans currently make up only around 1.4 percent of total outstanding lending in Thailand, and most of that flows to large corporations rather than the SMEs Patinya describes as stuck waiting for a price signal. 

 

TDRI researchers have proposed channelling future carbon tax revenue into dedicated green transition funds and encouraging large firms to help supplier SMEs access low-interest green credit – a mechanism that echoes, almost exactly, the supply-chain support Tetra Pak says it is already trying to build informally.

 

 

 

Betting on the next generation

Beyond his corporate strategy, Patinya devotes personal time to mentoring students on circular-economy projects at Chulalongkorn and Kasetsart universities — work he emphasises is unpaid and entirely separate from his corporate role. 

 

He describes young people as motivated and well-informed, yet frequently lacking the professional connections needed to turn ideas into viable ventures, a gap he actively bridges by linking students to potential investors and publicising their work.

 

He also observes a structural issue closer to home. Drawing from his son's experience returning from an R&D role in the UK, Patinya notes that Thai engineering positions are often weighted toward equipment installation rather than genuine innovation — a mismatch that increasingly shapes how younger job seekers evaluate prospective employers. 

 

That observation aligns with data from the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), which shows green employment growing by just 1.4 percent annually over the past decade — lifting green jobs from 6 to 7 percent of total employment. High-skilled roles, particularly in environmental engineering, remain in critically short supply even as demand climbs.

 

 

 

Taken together, Tetra Pak’s narrative is less about a company that has solved sustainability and more about one that spent three decades preparing for regulations it always expected to arrive.

 

Thailand's broader sustainability movement is now entering a similar reckoning — one where good intentions are tested against financing gaps, patchy standards, and the practical burdens carried by smaller firms.

 

While three decades of early investment can take an individual company far, whether Thailand’s wider industrial base — particularly its SMEs — can close that same gap in time remains the open question this interview series sets out to explore.

 

 

This is the second article in a series exploring Thailand's sustainability transition ahead of a roundtable of business and policy leaders, convening in late September to discuss how the country can turn climate pressure into competitive advantage.