Frequently Asked Questions

RTI International Campus, Holden Building — 243 East Institute Drive, Durham, NC 27703.

The Source Reduction Summit takes place June 3–4, 2026, with an optional informal reception on June 2 for attendees arriving early.

June 3 & 4 are the primary program days, while June 2 ("Day 0") is an optional evening gathering.

You'll need to check in each day ahead of program start at 9:00 AM.

Light breakfast, coffee & tea throughout the day, lunch, and light refreshments after programming will be provided on June 3 and 4.

Attendees are responsible for booking their own travel and lodging.

We've secured special event prices (~$120 + tax) for standard rooms at the following properties on a first-come, first-served basis. When booking, please note you are part of the RTI room block.

• DoubleTree Suites by Hilton RTP · Call (919) 941-6000

  → Shuttle from RDU Airport available → Shuttle to RTI campus available

• Hilton Garden Inn Miami Blvd →

  → Shuttle from RDU Airport available → Shuttle to RTI campus available

• Hyatt Place Durham Southpoint →

  → Shuttle to RTI campus available

• Fairfield by Marriott – Durham Southpoint →

  → Shuttle to RTI campus available

• Residence Inn MacPherson Duke (Durham) · Call (919) 680-4440

  × No shuttle from airport or to RTI campus

The Source Reduction Summit is a working forum for the teams responsible for SB 54 Individual Source Reduction Plans — designed to help you save time, avoid spinning your wheels, and bring the right partners into the room.

Producers, suppliers, converters, PRO leadership and technical experts convene together so all parts of the value chain needed to build both compliant and implementable plans are at the table.

Virtual learning exchanges with producers & experts are essential for understanding rules and timelines, but they rarely put your internal team and the broader ecosystem in the same room for sustained, structured learning. Over two days, the Summit compresses months of fragmented touchpoints into:

• High-density exposure to leading experts on SB 54, source reduction, packaging design, and implementation.
• Structured opportunities to hear how other producers and supply-chain actors are thinking about similar challenges.
• Focused time to identify the key decisions, dependencies, and questions your team needs to work through after the Summit.

Instead of piecemeal input over many months, your team gets concentrated, context-rich guidance it can immediately use to shape internal work.

You will leave with:

• A much clearer understanding of how SB 54's source-reduction requirements apply to your portfolio.
• A shared internal view of which source-reduction pathways (reuse, elimination, right-sizing, material changes, PCR) are most realistic for your company to explore.
• A more realistic sense of sequencing and timing — what can be piloted quickly, what requires deeper supply-chain changes or capital decisions, and where you may need to monitor evolving guidance.

The Summit helps the value chain share an understanding of 5 source reduction pathways outlined in PRO guidance for Individual Source Reduction Plans: Reuse & Refill; Elimination; Right-Sizing, Light-weighting & bulk format; Material Substitution; and PCR Increase.

Building on this foundational understanding, participants will deep-dive into assumptions & scenarios for each pathway to help teams understand what is viable for their unique portfolio.

Both. Early sessions create a shared foundation for teams that are just beginning their ISR planning. Later discussions and Q&A go deeper for teams that already have draft concepts or internal analyses and want to sharpen their questions, understand trade-offs, and stress-test assumptions with the value chain & other experts.

The Summit is structured around smaller-group discussions and Q&A blocks where you can explore portfolio-specific scenarios and challenges within clear antitrust guardrails. These are complemented by briefings & debriefs. The aim is to give you enough space to make the content real for your own plan without sharing competitively sensitive information.

Attending the Summit does not satisfy any formal requirement under SB 54 and does not replace your reporting or compliance obligations through CAA or CalRecycle. It is a readiness and capacity-building forum designed to help teams understand expectations, surface key questions, and avoid spinning their wheels while preparing Individual Source Reduction Plans.

The Summit is designed to complement — not replace — CAA and CalRecycle guidance, webinars, and public meetings. Those remain the baseline source for formal requirements and timelines. The Summit adds value by:

• Bringing top experts and experienced practitioners together in one setting.
• Providing space to interpret what official guidance means operationally.
• Highlighting where there are still practical questions and ecosystem gaps around source reduction.

In short, it is where teams can "digest" official guidance with expert help and peer perspective.

Because companies that may compete with each other will be present, the Summit will operate under strict antitrust guardrails. Discussions will focus on:

• Regulatory expectations & PRO guidance resources
• Technical / implementation issues
• High-level strategies and non-competitive lessons learned

Participants will not be permitted to share or solicit competitively sensitive information (such as prices, margins, volumes, customer allocations, or supplier-specific commercial tactics). Clear guidance will be provided, and facilitators and counsel will actively redirect any conversation that drifts toward sensitive topics.

The Summit will follow the Chatham House Rule: participants are free to use the information and insights they receive, but they may not attribute specific comments to individuals, companies, or organizations outside the meeting. This is intended to support candid discussion while protecting participants and encouraging honest, practical exchange.

Polling and Q&A will be moderated and designed to stay within legal guardrails. Questions that trend toward competitively sensitive topics will be declined, reframed, or answered only in a generalized way. Polls will focus on anonymous, aggregated self-reflection on readiness levels and common obstacles — not on company-specific commercial data.

External counsel will be present throughout the event and help ensure discussions remain within appropriate legal boundaries. If a conversation starts drifting into sensitive territory, facilitators or counsel will intervene, redirect, or close down that line of discussion, and participants will be reminded of the guidelines.

We recommend 2–4 attendees per producer, with a mix that reflects how your organization actually makes packaging and sourcing decisions.

A strong configuration is:

• Sustainability / EPR lead who owns SB 54 and broader packaging strategy.
• Packaging engineering or R&D lead with detailed format specification and performance knowledge.
• Legal / compliance lead tracking SB 54, PRO obligations, contracts, and related EPR developments.
• Supply chain or procurement lead who understands key supplier and converter relationships and can speak to feasibility, lead times, and commercial realities.

Leaders, technical managers, and client relations individuals from suppliers, converters, & co-packagers are also critical attendees.

The primary audience is the working-level and cross-functional leaders who will shape, coordinate, and implement source-reduction planning. Senior leaders are welcome — especially if they are sponsoring the work internally — but the content is built for those who manage day-to-day packaging, compliance, sourcing, and operational decisions.

Yes. Suppliers, converters, co-packers, and external consultants are encouraged to attend, subject to capacity and the same confidentiality and antitrust safeguards as producers.

For Circle member producers:

• First 2 Tickets

  Free

• Additional Tickets

  $500 each

Member companies are encouraged to use these two complimentary tickets for the internal leaders most central to SB 54, packaging, and sourcing decisions.

For non-member attendees, pricing is structured to support cross-functional teams attending together:

• 1 Ticket

  $1,500

• 2 Tickets

  $1,111 per ticket

• 3+ Tickets

  $850 per ticket

The Summit is designed for a focused group of producers, supply-chain partners, and experts, with room layouts and session formats that keep most working blocks in true small-group settings. The aim is to foster organic discussion where participants can genuinely engage, compare approaches & problem-solve, and deep-dive into questions relevant for their portfolio — rather than sit through a day of large group presentations.

Registration is open to obligated producers, Circle members, relevant supply-chain partners, and other ecosystem actors on a first-come, first-served basis until capacity is reached. If demand is high, priority may be given to obligated producers and Circle members, but there is no formal invitation requirement.

Yes. Participants can expect post-event follow-up that captures high-level themes, recurring questions, and non-attributed insights & data points from the Summit. Any materials shared will be designed to reinforce the learning and signal where many teams are focusing their attention, while complying with antitrust guardrails & respecting the Chatham House Rule.

The Summit is intended to serve as a deep-dive within the broader EPR Readiness Circle and support ecosystem. It gives participants concentrated exposure to experts and peers, then creates a stronger foundation for ongoing readiness sessions and follow-up conversations throughout the SB 54 (and other legislation) implementation timeline.