Papacks CEO: ‘Working with sustainable impact makes people happy’

'I care a lot about pollution, about sustainability, about the health of humanity, and of course animals,' says Tahsin Dag

Transcript

Tahsin Dag founded Papacks in a garage in Cologne, working to find the right renewable, plant-based raw material that could replace single use plastic. “If you see this pollution and the problems today, what is happening in five or 10 years?” he asks. He decided to act, and today Papacks has five ‘Gigafactories’ and is building at least 10 more over the next few years. Tahsin explains what drove him to create the business, and how his vision and passion continues to draw people to him to help grow Papacks even further.

European CEO: I’m back with Tahsin Dag, CEO of Papacks. Tahsin, we’re all aware of the urgency of the climate crisis. And we’re all trying to do our bit. But not many of us have started a business about it – so I wonder, why you? And why this?

Tahsing Dag: This is a very very good question, so I mean, end of the day I have to start at the point that I quit my school after 13 years. And today I talk with professors and doctors and a lot of really very very big scientists from Fraunhofer Institute, ATB, about OTR [oxygen transmission rate] and WVTR [water vapour transmission rate] recipes and coating technology. I studied nothing!

So I think it starts that I care a lot about pollution, about sustainability, about the health of humanity, and of course animals.

I think we lose really our root to the environment. And if you see this pollution and the problems today, what is happening in five or 10 years? And the problem was plastic – single use plastic.

I’m not hating plastic! There’s a need for plastic products, of course. Long term plastic in medicine, furniture, automotive. But if we talk about a Eurocup which you use just two minutes and then it’s empty, that doesn’t make sense.

And then I started really to understand – hey, there’s a chance. There’s a business chance, there’s an impact chance. You can combine ecologically and economically everything together. You can really drive the market with this idea.

European CEO: How did you go from the garage to the five Gigafactories that you have now? And how much of that growth was driven by people sharing that same vision of a more sustainable planet?

Tahsin Dag: This is not a one man show. This is a ‘we’, and the company is growing just with people with the same mission and passion. And this is why a lot of people come to me.

Everybody needs something where it’s more impact, inside of them. Business is their outside. But to do a business with a sustainable impact makes me happy, and other people too.

I always say I have to support the people around me. Everybody can learn from each other. And it’s very important to listen and to communicate this with all the people.

I’m not the one and only guy to have really a good idea. Everybody has got good ideas. But you have to support those ideas, and you have to stand one time more up than you fall. Resilience is very important. To drive it and believe in you and the people is very important.

A leader is always challenged. And if you want to do what I want to do now, and change the market, then you need really brilliant people around you.