Products of Change is continuing its invaluable partnership with the Global Licensing Group and will be exhibiting on the show floor, alongside the resources and tools it is pioneering to enable innovative, resilient, and future-proofed business.
POC is collaborating with Informa and the Global Licensing Group to continue to champion the progress of sustainability at Licensing Expo this year (19-21 May). Visit us at stand: O235.
Unlocking sustainable opportunity on the stage
A key offering will be a panel session on Wednesday 20 May, 16:00-16:45 at the Networking Hub, titled: Why Sustainability is now Core to Brand Licensing.
Hosted by Helena Mansell-Stopher, founder and CEO of Products of Change, this panel will bring together leaders driving real change across beauty, fashion, music, and entertainment: Andrew Xeni (Nobody’s Child), Olivia Kelly (Universal Music Group/Bravado) and John Breckow (Disney).
Together, they will explore how brand owners and licensees can move beyond intent to impact by embedding sustainability into product, partnerships and commercial strategy to future-proof brands and unlock endless opportunity.
The brand and licensing industry has always evolved with culture, responding to shifting trends, retail changes as well as new consumer expectations. But there is one shift that is not a passing phase: the expectation that brands genuinely care – and should care.
Today’s consumers, particularly the next generation, expect brands to care about how products are made, their environmental impact, and the future they help shape. Sustainability is no longer a side conversation in all of this; it is instead now deeply embedded in how business is judged.
Despite changing language and political noise, this expectation has not weakened. Environmental concern now ranks second globally in unprompted mentions when consumers discuss sustainability. According to McKinsey’s State of the Consumer 2025, 61% of global consumers care about climate change, and 51% believe businesses – not individuals – must lead the transition.
Exhibiting sustainability as the direction of travel on stand
The POC Membership network is a community unto itself, full of a vast array of brands at varying stages of their sustainability journey. Crucially, it includes the innovators and the changemakers which are fearlessly striving a path forward to do things differently and in doing so are inspiring examples of what can be achieved when sustainability is embedded into the very fabric of business.
This year, POC will be showcasing a selection of such innovators from its Membership on its show stand (O235). This includes circular music merchandise manufacturer, Organic Sound, which is working alongside the teams at Bravado and Universal Music Group to produce merchandised apparel from recycled textile waste, in particular excess stock from UMG. Another textile innovator will be Material Rebellion, which produces apparel blanks from textile waste and cut offs, using innovative technology to cut patterns from machine waste.
We also have the companies that are using new materials to transform industry: BioFluff’s products will be on stand, demonstrating that soft, scalable plush material can be created without the use of fossil-based plastic material, instead using completely plant-based sources. Meanwhile Baneco is creating fibre moulded packaging from the vast amounts of waste by-product from banana production. And finally, we will have Movopack, the innovative reusable packaging creator, introducing branded packaging formats that can be used over and over again. Also showcasing packaging innovations, and the often simple but incredibly impactful changes that can be made to update packaging sustainability will be RDP Creative, while R-Pac will demonstrate the endless opportunity of DPPs for consumer interaction with product and data.
These innovators demonstrate the direction of travel for the industry and offer the solutions to enable us to get there.
The debut of an industry-first tool at Expo
As the industry matures, so must the way we drive change. Because while ambition has set the direction, it is data that will enable us to move faster, align more effectively, and deliver measurable progress at scale.
At the heart of this next chapter is the POC Partner Maturity Index, developed in partnership with Kids Industries, and built collaboratively with the industry itself. It launched industry-wide, in collaboration with the Global Licensing Group on Earth Day (22 April) last month and will be making its mark at Licensing Expo this year as the industry begins to adopt this first-of-its-kind tool. The Global Licensing Group are supporting with the roll out, increasing its reach and the impact it can and will have on streamlining sustainability reporting for the licensing industry.
This industry-first tool is designed to unify and streamline sustainability data across the brand and licensing ecosystem, enabling a shared, structured view of environmental maturity across global supply chains.
For the first time, brand owners can understand where their partners are, licensees can benchmark their progress, and the industry as a whole can begin to move in greater alignment – reducing duplication, increasing transparency, and accelerating change.
Products of Change’s role is evolving from convening conversation to enabling coordination; from sharing knowledge to building infrastructure; from supporting progress to helping power it, and Licensing Expo 2026 will cement this direction for both POC and the exciting future of the brand and licensing industry.
Visit us at stand: O235.
