Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy and its
Consortium to Reinvent the Retail
Bag have released a new
resource to guide retailers looking to adopt reusable bag service models. The
report, Beyond the Plastic Bag, shares key insights and analysis gathered from
collaborative reusable bag pilots conducted in select stores of Founding
Partners CVS Health, Target and Walmart throughout Northern
California in 2021, as part of the Consortium’s Beyond the Bag
pilots.
The Beyond the Bag Initiative aims to identify, pilot and implement viable
design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the
current retail bag. The Center for the Circular Economy
launched
the Consortium in 2020 — convening three of the world’s largest brick-and-mortar
retailers to identify, test and implement innovative new design solutions that
can adequately replace today’s single-use plastic retail bag. Since launch, the
Consortium has multiplied in size: Kroger has joined as Grocery Sector Lead
Partner; DICK’S Sporting Goods joined as Sports & Outdoors Sector Lead
Partner; Dollar General as Value Sector Lead Partner; The TJX Companies
as Apparel & Home Goods Sector Lead Partner; and Ulta Beauty as Beauty
Sector Lead Partner. Ahold Delhaize USA Brands, Albertsons Companies,
H-E-B, Hy-Vee, Meijer, Wakefern Food Corp and Walgreens are
Supporting Partners; and Conservation International and Ocean
Conservancy serve as Environmental Advisory Partners.
The Consortium’s Innovation Partner, IDEO, worked closely with Closed Loop
Partners and the three participating retailers in designing and running the
reusable bag pilots in Northern California featured in the report. Findings from
the Beyond the Bag pilots build on and complement additional learnings from
Closed Loop Partners’ NextGen
Consortium
— dedicated to identifying, accelerating and scaling commercially viable,
circular foodservice packaging solutions — which ran several reusable cup
pilots
in 2020, driving the Center’s work to rigorously test and hone reuse solutions
to ensure that they achieve their intended impacts.
“Successfully implementing reuse models on the ground and accelerating their
growth takes unprecedented collaboration. Since 2018, the Center for the
Circular Economy has been convening competitors to address complex material
challenges and advance circular solutions, including reuse,” said Kate Daly,
Managing Director of the Center for the Circular Economy. “This collaboration
with the nation’s largest retailers to test and pilot reusable bag solutions
across multiple stores is a critical step toward reducing single-use plastic bag
waste. Iterative testing and data-driven decision-making of reuse systems can
help avoid unintended consequences, like insufficient recapture of reusable
packaging or the one-to-one replacement of single-use plastics with ‘reusables.’
We hope that this report on the Beyond the Bag initiative serves as inspiration
for forward-thinking organizations looking to bring reuse to the next level. The
learnings from our pilots can help guide us toward a future in which reusing
valuable materials and products in our economy becomes the commonsense
norm.”
Transforming cosmetics packaging through collaboration
Join us as leading beauty retailer Ulta Beauty and Pact Collective share insights into how to maximize the transformative potential of partnerships, mentorship and pre-competitive alliances to overcome industry-wide challenges, reveal new solutions, and advance sustainability in materials and packaging for beauty and personal-care products - Tues, Oct. 15, at SB'24 San Diego.
Approximately 100 billion single-use plastic bags are used each year in the
US — most of which end up as waste in landfills and the environment.
Alongside other complementary waste-mitigation strategies, reuse models play an
important role in addressing single-use plastic packaging waste; and in addition
to the myriad environmental benefits over single-use options, reuse models have
been estimated to save food-service businesses alone $5 billion a
year.
As retailers work to respond to the urgent challenge and address increasing
plastic bag regulations across the US, the report provides key findings on what
drives an optimal shopper experience and uptake of reuse models:
Customer-facing journey for reusable bag services
-
Effective storytelling is foundational for building awareness
-
Convenience is imperative when it comes to adoption and sign-up
-
Customers are looking for a clear and easy reason to help them reuse
-
Accessible drop-off points and quick confirmation of return help build
trust in the reuse system.
Behind-the-scenes action enabling reusable bag services
-
Partnering with the right stakeholders matters
-
Impact must be measured at every stage
-
Further scaling reuse systems will help catalyze efficiencies
“Through partnerships with innovative startups, collaboration with other
partners, and buy-in from our customers, the Beyond the Bag pilots provided
critical, data-driven analysis on the role that reuse models could play in
plastic waste mitigation when thoughtfully designed and their impact
successfully measured,” said Sheryl Burke, SVP of Corporate Social
Responsibility for CVS Health. “We still have a lot to learn collectively, but
we’re thrilled to continue our journey towards a more circular future for
retail.”
Over the next year, the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag will continue to
conduct extensive research and in-market testing of designs and innovative bag
solutions that can reduce single-use plastic bag waste. These aim to inform the
viability of solutions in different contexts, as well as the full potential of
solutions to more sustainably, accessibly and effectively get goods home.
“The Beyond the Bag Pilots fostered an unprecedented platform for connectivity
between trailblazing reuse startups, customers, Walmart, and other retailers in
the industry,” said Kathleen McLaughlin, EVP and Chief Sustainability
Officer for Walmart. “The pilots created the space for collective
experimentation; and provided data-driven insights on the ease, convenience and
perceived benefits of the models tested. This kind of on-the-ground diligence
from pilots is critical to inform what could be next for reuse and where it
could fit in a circular economy.”
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Sep 14, 2022 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST