In this exclusive rapid interview, Anoosheh Oskouian, CEO of Ship & Shore Environmental, discusses how rising regulatory pressure, customer expectations and energy costs are reshaping the way packaging manufacturers approach VOC emissions management. From the role of regenerative thermal oxidizers and heat recovery systems to the future of emissions monitoring and supply chain accountability, Oskouian explores why environmental performance is becoming a key driver of operational efficiency, cost savings and long-term competitiveness.
Q: You've spent years helping manufacturers tackle VOC emissions before they became a mainstream business issue. What's changed over the past two or three years that's made packaging companies pay much closer attention to production-stage emissions?
Three forces converged at once. First, regulatory attention moved downstream — it's no longer just about what emissions leave the plant, but how brand owners audit their entire supply chain. Major consumer brands are now asking their packaging converters hard questions about production emissions, because those emissions show up in the brand's own sustainability reporting and Corporate / Investing reports. Second, enforcement has become far more common place and data-driven. Agencies have better monitoring tools, and non-compliance is more visible and more expensive than it used to be. And third, the economics shifted. Energy costs made every BTU of wasted heat a line item that CFOs actually notice. When compliance, customer pressure, and cost savings all point in the same direction, attention follows very quickly.
Q: Many packaging manufacturers are under pressure to increase domestic production while also controlling costs. How do you convince plant managers that investing in emissions-control technology isn't just another expense, but something that can improve long-term operational performance?
First let’s not lose track that controlling VOC emissions is no longer a luxury in the industry but a necessity. The focus shifts to how best to meet regulatory requirement without breaking the bank with upfront capital expenditures and operating cost. Modern regenerative thermal oxidizers (RTOs) can be designed for 99%+ destruction efficiencies to maximize production numbers with up to 97% thermal efficiency for lowest operating cost. Secondary heat recovery can be redirected back into dryers or facility heating, and in many of our installations that recovered energy offsets a meaningful share of the plant's natural gas consumption. When you modelled over time, significant savings are realized to offset initial capital outlay. I also remind plant managers that expanding domestic capacity almost always triggers new permitting. Getting emissions control right at the design stage is dramatically cheaper than retrofitting under a consent order. Done well, this investment buys you permitting headroom — which is really the freedom to grow.
Q: You often talk about balancing compliance with productivity. What's the biggest misconception manufacturers have about emissions regulations and their impact on production efficiency?
The biggest misconception is that compliance and productivity are in tension — that every dollar spent on environmental equipment is a dollar taken away from throughput. In my experience, it's usually the opposite. The engineering discipline required to properly capture and treat emissions forces you to understand your airflows, your solvent usage, your process variability. That understanding almost always uncovers inefficiencies you didn't know you had — excessive exhaust volumes, poorly balanced ventilation, dryers running hotter than they need to. We've had clients discover six-figure annual energy savings simply because the emissions project made them look closely at their process for the first time in years. Compliance done thoughtfully is a diagnostic exercise for your whole operation. A dollar done right in thoughtful compliance design could be multiple dollars of increased production
Q: Flexographic printing remains heavily reliant on solvent-based processes. Are you seeing innovation within the printing industry itself, or is the biggest opportunity still in capturing and treating emissions more effectively?
Both, but on very different timelines. There is real innovation happening — water-based and energy-curable ink systems keep improving, and for certain applications they're genuinely viable. But for high-speed, wide-web flexo on flexible packaging films, solvent-based systems still deliver the print quality, adhesion, and press speeds that converters need to stay competitive. Ultimately, customer product quality will drive coating technology, supporting process, and environmental equipment. This reality is beginning to take hold. So for the next decade at least, the biggest practical opportunity is in smarter capture and treatment: better permanent total enclosures, higher capture efficiencies, oxidizers designed around the actual solvent loading of the process rather than oversized generic units, and heat recovery that turns the treatment step into an energy source. The industry doesn't have to choose between transforming its chemistry and controlling its emissions — it should pursue both in parallel.
Q: Energy prices remain a major concern for manufacturers. How are technologies like regenerative thermal oxidizers and heat recovery systems helping facilities reduce operating costs while meeting stricter environmental expectations?
This is where the technology has quietly become remarkable. A well-designed RTO today achieves 95 to 97 percent thermal energy recovery within the unit itself, which means once RTOs are up to temperature, the solvents in the exhaust stream often provide most of the fuel needed to sustain destruction. In some cases the system runs nearly self-sustaining during production. Then you add secondary heat recovery — capturing the remaining exhaust heat and returning it to the process as heated makeup air, hot water, or hot oil — and the oxidizer starts actively minimizing the facility's overall energy bill. We've engineered systems where recovered heat displaces a substantial portion of the dryer load. For a plant running multiple shifts, that translates into real money, year after year, while emissions performance exceeds regulatory requirements. Stricter environmental expectations and lower operating costs aren't competing goals anymore; the same piece of equipment delivers both.
Q: You've worked with manufacturers across multiple industrial sectors. Is the packaging industry ahead of the curve on emissions management, or are there lessons it can learn from other manufacturing sectors?
Packaging is ahead in awareness and behind in integration. Because of brand-owner pressure, packaging converters are more attuned to sustainability expectations than many industrial sectors. But sectors like automotive coatings and semiconductor manufacturing have gone further in treatment management as a core process-engineering function rather than an end-of-pipe obligation. In those industries, environmental performance data feeds directly into production decisions — solvent usage is tracked in real time, abatement equipment is monitored like any other critical asset, and preventive maintenance is rigorous. Packaging can learn from that mindset: treat your oxidizer with the same seriousness as your press. The plants that do this see better uptime, better compliance records, and better energy performance. The technology gap between sectors is small; the operational-culture gap is where the opportunity lies.
Q: As CEO, you've overseen the evolution of Ship & Shore from a traditional emissions-control company into one focused on energy recovery and broader environmental engineering. How has customer demand shaped that evolution?
Our customers pulled us there, honestly. Twenty years ago, clients called us because a regulator told them to install an oxidizer. Today they call us with a much broader question: how do we reduce our environmental footprint and our operating costs at the same time? That shift changed how we engineer. Every project now begins with an energy audit mentality — where is heat being wasted, where can it be recovered, how does the abatement system integrate with the rest of the plant? Customers also increasingly want a partner across the full lifecycle: permitting support, system design, installation, ongoing monitoring, and optimization as their production evolves. Demand pushed us from being an equipment supplier to being an environmental and energy engineering partner, and frankly, that's a much more interesting company to lead.
Q: Looking ahead, do you expect future regulations to focus more on measuring emissions throughout the manufacturing process rather than simply setting emissions limits at the end of the production line?
Yes, and manufacturers should prepare for it now. The regulatory trajectory is clearly moving toward continuous, process-level accountability — more emphasis on capture efficiency, fugitive emissions, material balances, and real-time monitoring rather than periodic stack tests alone. Monitoring technology has become affordable enough that regulators can reasonably expect it, and the broader push for supply-chain transparency reinforces the trend. What we're also seeing, with developments like PFAS regulation, is scrutiny extending to what goes into products and processes, not just what comes out of the stack. My advice to manufacturers is simple: build measurement into your operations before you're required to. The plants that already understand their emissions at the process level will adapt easily; the ones relying on annual compliance snapshots will find the transition painful.
Q: You've served on industry and regulatory committees while also working directly with manufacturers. Where do you think policymakers and factory operators understand each other well, and where is there still a disconnect?
The shared ground is bigger than people assume. Both sides genuinely want cleaner air, and both understand that American manufacturing needs to remain viable — I've rarely met a regulator who wants to shut plants down or an operator who's indifferent to their community's air quality. Where the disconnect persists is in timelines and capital reality. Policy is sometimes written as if equipment can be specified, permitted, fabricated, and installed in months, when the real cycle — especially for a mid-sized manufacturer managing capital budgets — is often two to three years. Conversely, operators sometimes don't appreciate how much flexibility exists within regulations if they engage early and come to the table with data. The best outcomes I've witnessed happen when manufacturers treat regulators as engineering counterparts rather than adversaries, and when policymakers build implementation schedules around how factories actually procure and install equipment.
Q: If you were advising the CEO of a mid-sized packaging manufacturer planning investments over the next five years, what would you tell them to prioritise now to stay competitive, compliant and operationally resilient?
Four things. First, know your numbers: commission a thorough emissions and energy audit so every subsequent decision is grounded in data rather than assumptions. Second, invest in capture and control capacity with headroom — size your abatement systems for the production you want in five years, not the production you have today, because permitting expansions later is slower and costlier. Third, treat energy recovery as a core investment criterion; any thermal system you buy should be evaluated on its ability to return heat to your process, because energy volatility isn't going away. And fourth, build environmental data capability — real-time monitoring of solvent usage, capture efficiency, and equipment performance. That data will satisfy tomorrow's regulators, answer your brand customers' questions, and reveal operational savings along the way. The through-line is simple: stop treating environmental performance as a compliance department problem and start treating it as an operational asset. The companies that make that shift will be the ones still winning contracts in five years.