Such a daring initiative, the new Loop shopping platform is all about reusable/refillable packaging. In June, TerraCycle CEO and Loop inventor Tom Szaky enthralled a standing-room-only audience during EastPack 2019 with his insights into the consumer dynamics fueling sustainability today—and Loop’s answer to circular economy challenges. Since its launch, Loop activities continue as it rolls out to new locations and welcomes new partners. At MinnPack 2019, on Thurs., Oct. 24, from 2:15 to 3:00 p.m., Anthony Rossi, vp, global business development at Loop, will give us another update in his presentation “Consumer Packaging: Why Big Brands are Revisiting the Milkman Model.”

TerraCycle’s Loop leads the charge as brands, retailers and consumers all express a desire to reduce packaging waste TerraCycle launched its Loop initiative in the spring, giving consumer packaged goods brands a platform to have their products delivered in reusable containers, as in the old days of the milkman bringing glass bottles to the doorstep. What followed was a small pilot in the Northeast that quickly garnered a waiting list of 90,000 consumers requesting the service.   “If we tried to launch [Loop] five years ago, I don’t know if it would’ve worked,” says Anthony Rossi, the program’s global vice president of business development. “But if there’s one thing we’ve seen so far, it’s that the consumer is now ready.”   A recent Nielsen survey found that 75% of consumers globally would “definitely” or “probably” change their consumption habits if doing so would have a positive effect on the environment; nearly half of U.S. consumers said likewise.   “And these consumers are putting their dollars where their values are, spending $128.5 billion on sustainable fast-moving consumer products this year,” says Kyle McKinley, vice president of design solutions at Nielsen. “Since 2014, these influential shoppers have grown sustainable product sales by nearly 20%, with a compound growth rate that’s four times larger than conventional products.” Nielsen expects sustainable-friendly shoppers in the U.S to spend upward of $150 billion on sustainable goods by 2021.

Good for Business

  Reducing waste isn’t just good for the world, it’s good for business. With consumers showing signs of wanting to play their role in reducing waste, brands and retailers are motivated to develop more sustainable goods and packaging options. Just this summer, a coalition of industry companies including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and SAP founded the Brands for Good coalition; separately, a host of CPGs, retailers and packaging providers formed the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. (Neither group responded to requests for an interview.)   Participants in the Brands for Good coalition are making commitments to embed social purpose into their brand promises and products; to use brand influence to make sustainable living accessible for consumers; and to collaborate with other players to change behavior to create a positive impact on the planet. Each company will launch its own projects with that shared mission in mind.   P&G played an integral role in the launch of Loop and is one of more than 100 brands already working with the platform. Three years ago, the CPG giant stood side by side with TerraCycle at the World Economic Forum to discuss its use of ocean plastics in Head & Shoulders bottles, and at that time began discussing the idea of reusable services. It has since also launched Tide Purclean, a plant-based liquid detergent, and has an overall goal to make all product packaging recyclable or reusable by 2030.   Other major CPGs such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Unilever and Diageo, to name a few, have set similar public goals in an effort to reduce global waste by making packaging more recyclable.

Making a Commitment

  Nestle, another founding Loop partner, has “committed to making 100% of our packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025,” says Elizabell Marquez, director of marketing for the company’s Haagen-Dazs brand. The Nestle Institute of Packaging Sciences was created last year to advance these efforts, she notes.

  Clorox Co., also a Loop partner, is expected this month to announce an “ambitious product and packaging-related sustainability strategy as part of our broader environmental, social and governance strategy,” promises Andrea Rudert, associate director, corporate responsibility. Clorox previously set a goal to improve the sustainability of half of its product portfolio by 2020, with 2011 being the baseline year.   “We surpassed that goal two years early,” Rudert says. “In fact, as of the end of our 2019 fiscal year, we made sustainability improvements to 58% of our product portfolio.” The company has recyclable primary packaging for 92% of its lineup.   Other manufacturers making sustainable commitments include SC Johnson, which last spring launched Windex in special packaging at Target, Walmart and other retailers. The bottles are made from 100% recycled ocean plastic and are non-toxic and cruelty-free.   Windex is also planning this fall to launch a “Social Plastic” bottle that will include recycled ocean-bound social plastic sourced by Plastic Bank from Haiti, the Philippines and Indonesia. The effort is designed to help the environment but also provide social benefits to people living below the poverty line in those nations, according to a company release.   SC Johnson also expanded Windex’s concentrate cleaner offerings into products from such brands as Pledge, Scrubbing Bubbles, Shout and Fantastik. The concentrate refill bottles use 80% less plastic compared to a brand new, larger trigger bottle; consumers mix tap water with the concentrate into a reusable trigger bottle to significantly reduce plastic waste.   Elsewhere, Hasbro will phase out the use of plastics in its packaging beginning in 2020, doing away with the polybags, elastic bands, shrink wrap, window sheets and blister packs that have long been part of the toy buying experience. The company eliminated wire ties from packaging in 2010, and has been working with TerraCycle to recycle materials from old toys and games to make innovative social spaces and items like play areas, flowerpots and park benches.   Yet another TerraCycle partner, Colgate-Palmolive, has been recycling used toothpaste tubes and toothbrushes into playground materials. The company also recently unveiled a recyclable toothpaste tube that will launch in 2020 via the Tom’s of Maine brand but extend to all brands by 2025. The tube uses the “number 2” plastic commonly found in soda bottles.

In the Loop

  With TerraCycle’s two-decade-long history of working with brands to eliminate waste, it’s no surprise the company was able to partner up with manufacturers such as P&G, Unilever, Bic, Mars and Danone to launch a strategy around reusable packaging. TerraCycle began as a solution to help brands recycle products that aren’t recycled at traditional facilities, such as cigarette butts, chip bags and various personal care products. That remains the company’s largest operation. Second to that effort is working with brands to integrate recycled content into its packaging, as it did through the aforementioned efforts with P&G’s Head & Shoulders on the ocean plastics and Colgate for playground materials.   TerraCycle’s newest business unit is Loop, which Rossi describes as “dusting off the idea of the milkman and bringing it to any product that’s single-use today.” Loop is, in fact, a way to completely eliminate packaging waste. “Recycling is a Band-Aid on a cut, and what we need to do is attack the problem at its core. And the problem is single use and disposability.”   Nestle became a founding partner of Loop because the concept presents an “innovative and disruptive approach to changing how products are packaged – and delivered – and how consumers enjoy them,” says Marquez.   The short of it: Shoppers buy a brand’s durable, reusable (and exclusive) Loop packaging, which gets delivered through Loop in a special tote bag. When the contents are up for a refill, the user puts the packaging back in the Loop bag for free pickup; Loop then sanitizes the packaging to be refilled by the brand and shipped back to the user.   Kroger and Walgreens in the U.S, as well as Carrefour and Tesco in Europe, are Loop’s current retail partners. They help sell and distribute the Loop platform, with consumers signing up for Loop through the retailers.   A key element to the model is the brand’s involvement with the packaging. While Loop helps brands develop containers that can be used hundreds of times, can be sanitized and are strong enough to withstand the frequent shipping, they remain the brand’s asset.   Nestle, for example, owns the sleek, steel Haagen-Dazs container it developed for Loop, which Marquez says is a way to show that sustainability can be delivered in upscale, premium wrapping. The stainless steel container is etched with the familiar Haagen-Dazs tapestry, carries double lining for extra cooling and has an easy twist-off top, she explains.   “Loop is encouraging participating brands to create durable and reusable packaging designs that are more visually appealing,” says Rudert at Clorox. “The hope is that consumers will keep products on their countertops because they are ‘show off’ worthy.”   Clorox teamed with Loop for its pilot launch, testing a container for Clorox disinfecting wipes and a bottle for Hidden Valley Original Ranch dressing. (Glad food protection products are in the works.) Other Loop packaging examples include a simple, white container for Mars pet food; a Nature’s Path granola jar; and P&G’s range of chic steel or glass bottles for Tide, Crest mouthwash and other products.   “A lot of times, innovation in sustainability is perceived to start with these smaller, grassroots brands, and we keep sustainability on the fringes and we target that eco-friendly person,” Loop’s Rossi says. “What’s exciting about Loop is we’re trying to make sustainability irresistible to everyone. We’re working with big national brands and big national retailers, because for us to have the positive environmental impact that we want to have, sustainability can’t be kept to the fringes of society. It needs to be in everyone’s house.”

Going Forward

  Rossi’s somewhat Utopian vision is to see Loop operating nationwide, in every ZIP code, within five years. In the meantime, he encourages brands to think about incorporating more recycling into the design process. For example, if a detergent brand has decided to use “number 2” plastic (one of the most recyclable materials) but designs it in black, that’s a color that recycling machines often don’t pick up.   The Rochester Institute of Technology has been studying sustainability in packaging since the 1980s, says Dan Johnson, professor and chair of the school’s department of packaging science. Its efforts take a full supply chain view, examining issues such as transportation energy and product damage, not just material use and formats.   “Brands need to remember that not all successes in sustainability need to be customer-focused,” Johnson says, adding that consumer behavior around sustainability can be a bit of a wild card. “A good deal of the wins are only detectable by packaging geeks like our faculty, but [those actions] may be the largest contributor to meeting corporate sustainability goals around packaging.”   Johnson is inspired by some of the brand activity out there today, but warns that “economic and technical challenges in the recycling process are creating a shortage of both quality recycled raw material and credible outlets for collected recyclables. Thankfully, this gap in technology is beginning to be addressed by advances in areas like chemical recycling and advanced mechanical sortation technology.”   Back on the consumer-facing front lines, Nielsen’s McKinley says brands must stay true to who they are when considering their sustainable packaging designs. “As you act on collective sustainability needs in an authentic way for your brand, leverage the tools you already have: everyday analytics, innovation testing, consumer resonance and more.”   Clorox’s Rudert adds that brands and retailers should continue to raise greater consumer awareness on the urgent need for more sustainable commerce models. “When consumers are willing to pay for these products, companies will be incentivized to invest in the innovations needed to create sustainable change.”

It's the Pink Ribbon edition -- and it's a part of P&G's three-month pilot test to see if consumers are willing to refill beauty products.

Olay Regenerist Whip Pink Ribbon Moisturizer & Its Refillable Package

Olay Regenerist Whip Limited Edition Pink Ribbon Face Moisturizer + Single Use Refill is mailed in a box that is printed with illustrations showing how to pop in the refill pod into the jar. P&G first revealed in June that Olay's instantly recognizable red jar -- filled with its best-selling Olay Regenerist Whip Face Moisturizer -- may soon be refillable. And it's a bold move, and an ideal way for a beauty brand to design more sustainable packaging. Marc Pritchard, chief marketing officer, P&G, made the announcement at the Sustainable Brands 2019 Conference in Detroit during the Brands for Good Panel (see the video).   In addition, David Taylor, chairman, president and CEO, P&G, took part in the World Economic Forum earlier this year, where the panel discussed TerraCycle's Loop program -- and why P&G was one of the first companies onboard with the game-changing initiative. Now Olay's first refillable moisturizer is finally available -- but in a surprise twist, the jar is hot pink. The limited-edition Olay Regenerist Whip Pink Ribbon Face Moisturizer + Single Use Refill launched today, on October 1, in sync with Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The launch is part of Olay's three-month pilot test, designed to find out how willing consumers are to purchase and refill beauty packages. The pink jar will no doubt attract the attention of consumers looking for pink packaging at this time of year, in support of various breast cancer awareness organizations. Shown above are photos of Olay's refillable jar and pods, details about the materials they are made from and how much plastic will be eliminated from the environment, and photos of its outer packaging.

Reusable packaging may be the future of sustainability and smart branding.

Today consumer’s behavior expects lightning fast shipping service. Free or next day shipping is becoming a basic requirement. However, the cost of speed is increasing packaging waste at an alarming rate. Packaging makes up one-third or more of our trash, according to TheWorldCounts.com. How often have you ordered something online that came in a box too big for the item you ordered? All those one-item Amazon Prime orders add up to lots of packaging. A growing trend to counter the problem that could have interesting applications for the direct selling industry is in eco-friendly, durable and reusable packaging. Yes, reusable. The concept is referred to as a Loop system—a platform announced at the World Economic Forum. TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based company, created the system involving durable packages that are used and returned to be cleaned and then refilled for repeat use. “It has the same convenience of disposability,” says TerraCycle co-founder Tom Szaky in an Inc.com article. “This is how we move packaging and products from being disposable and owned by the consumer to being durable and borrowed by the consumer. Packaging becomes a service.” “With consumer acceptance growing, we now have the opportunity to view packaging as durable rather than disposable and offer solutions that are truly sustainable while delivering usage experiences never before possible,” the Inc. com article claims. This process also provides brand awareness opportunities and additional value for customers. Reusable packages can feature technologies such as a supplement bottle that reminds customers when to take the product or when to reorder. How about a self-sealing package that ensures freshness? Not tossing the packaging in the trash makes it a much bigger part of the overall customer experience. Many direct selling companies already use starter kit boxes for new distributors that double as a product holder, educational piece or display item for the business. Quaker Oats is testing a stylish metal canister that customers may want to display on their counter instead of hiding it in a pantry. Brooklyn’s The Wally Shop delivers local groceries in reusable containers and bags. Häagen-Dazs created a double-walled stainless-steel ice cream tub that keeps ice cream cold longer than a normal cardboard container. Reusable, durable and “smart” packaging is coming, and its future is all about sustainability, functionality, branding and user experience.

RB has established a way to recover difficult-to-recycle packages in the healthcare and personal care markets Does cold and flu season inevitably generate packaging waste? Consumer brands can step up to treat people and planet, as TerraCycle and Loop CEO Tom Szaky enlightens us. A new example is the RB Health & Nutrition Recycling Program, a national network for health-and-wellness package recovery.   Cough, cold and flu season is right around the corner, and in a world of year-on-year population growth, over-the-counter (OTC) wellness is only expanding. Millions of people annually manage seasonal symptoms with health products available without a prescription, items available at most convenience retailers, supermarkets and pharmacy stores at affordable prices and easy-to-use configurations. Packaging plays a huge role in this. Single-use plastics make pill jars, blister packs, syrup bottles, and throat and nose sprays easy to sell and buy—and we’ve also seen many prescription medicines move into the OTC space with user-friendly packaging. Of course, with the lower value production materials bringing down costs to purchase, most of this lightweighted packaging is typically non-recyclable through public programs. In a world of increasing sustainability concerns (not to mention, the changes in ailment and allergy season due to climate), raising the bar on circularity for the cough, cold and flu industries now can create new value propositions in the face of environmental uncertainty.   In sickness and in health: Consumer staples OTC cough, cold and flu drugs are considered consumer staples (that is, things people need year-round)—which is a category expected to grow 8.5% to a $491 billion industry by 2024. Due in large part to packaging technologies, manufacturers are able to deliver on the value propositions for everyday wellness, which (similar to food and beverage) include insurance of quality, ease of use and accessibility (both financial and geographic). Packaging in this space must be tamper-resistant; convenient; easy to open and close by adults (but difficult for young children to get into); space-saving; not prone to breakage in transport, on shelves or in use; and inexpensive enough to not drive up the cost of the product. In fact, many prescription medicines and medical-grade drug delivery devices (items such as pre-filled syringes, auto-injectors and nasal sprays) have crossed over from script-only into the OTC space thanks to single-use packaging.   A clogged system But the current state of global recycling aside, most of the packaging techniques used in the OTC space are non-recyclable. Small sizes, colored plastic, multi-layer and compositional components (such as tamper-resistant seals, blister packs, sachets and aseptic pouches), and shrink wraps are not economical to recycle. Costing money to collect and separate, recycling systems have not evolved to handle these items efficiently, and the materials have low value in the market. Nevertheless, the current track for single-use cough/cold/flu packaging is landfilling or incineration—and entirely loses out on their value as a material resource —and entirely loses out on their value as a material resource. Nearly all the new, virgin plastic produced is made to be used just once, then thrown away. What if even a fraction of the 280 million metric tons produced annually were captured to be recycled, and suitable markets found for the material so that they flow smoothly within the system?   Business can keep the system well Now and in the future, businesses and brands are in the strongest position to impact the supply chain. The bigger the business, the bigger the impact. RB, makers of popular consumer brands Mucinex, Enfamil and Airborne, are one of the latest conglomerates to work with TerraCycle on solving for these breaks in the materials economy through the Healthy You, Healthy Planet partnership. As part of its sustainability commitments to remove or reduce use of plastic packaging and invest in research into alternative materials, the corporation’s brand-sponsored, national recycling program with TerraCycle solves for difficult-to-recycle cough, cold, flu, sore throat and nasal care packaging, in addition to packaging for the following categories, from any brand: • Vitamins, minerals and supplements • Sexual health and well-being • Infant formula and child nutrition • Personal care and foot care From blister packs to baby formula tubes, even condom wrappers and personal care product tubes, the program accepts the many, varied types of packaging that deliver the products we use in everyday life. It also allows retail stores, colleges, gyms and other organizations to sign up as a public drop-off site and build up the recycling network. RB is also part of our new Loop platform, moving products from disposable packaging into the reusable, durable space. It is challenging for products in the health-and-wellness category to go refillable due to the issues of sterilization and reduced “toss-and-go” convenience upfront, the very reasons the category benefits from single-use packaging. But, as RB is proving, it can be done.   Healthy you, healthy planet What is good for the body, delivered in single-use packaging with no recycling solution, isn't always good for the planet, but what’s good for the planet is almost always good for us. Remedies for single-use packaging include recycling, but the key will always be reduction. Researching, developing, investing in and supporting better health care and personal wellness options is a much larger issue than the consumer goods industry, but they are related. The world will never not need products and services to keep us well, so it is imperative that the industry work to do better for the health and sustainability of its systems.

TerraCycle Adds Loop To Its Circular Economy Repertoire

Older readers may remember the days when the milkman would take away your empty milk bottles and replace them with full ones. CocaCola and hundreds of other products came in reusable containers. Commerce operated on what was known as the circular economy principle — the packaging that protected consumer products got returned to the source, cleaned, and used again and again. Then came plastics, those space age wonders that allowed anything and everything to be packaged in single use containers that were simply discarded. Corporations loved them because they were cheap and relieved them of the burden of collecting all those glass bottles and reusing them. What used to be considered a necessary part of doing business now became somebody else’s problem. As usual when an economic model allows companies to privatize the profits but socialize the costs, profits soared. Society, unfortunately, has not been so lucky. Today, millions of tons of plastics are resting for all eternity in landfills or floating in the world’s oceans. Pictures of plastic waste have been circulating on the internet for the past few years, showing mounds of plastics washed up on beaches on some of the world’s most remote islands. Microplastics have been found in the deepest parts of the ocean an atop the highest mountains. The public is finally recognizing that plastic waste is a huge problem that is getting worse by the day. TerraCycle is a global company that sees a business opportunity in promoting a circular economy. “We have found that nearly everything we touch can be recycled and collect typically non-recyclable items through national, first-of-their-kind recycling platforms,” it says on its website. “Leading companies work with us to take hard-to-recycle materials from our programs, such as ocean plastic, and turn them into new products, and our new Loop platform aims to change the way the world shops with favorite brands in refillable packaging offered with convenience and style.”

Introducing Loop

Credit: Loop

Recently, TerraCycle created a wholly owned subsidiary called Loop. “We envision the future of how we consume as a place where we receive higher quality, better designed products, that we can “throw in a bin” when they are finished with no cleaning, no sorting, and no hassle. But instead of that bin being a trash or recycling bin, it’s a Loop reuse bin, where everything is cleaned and goes around again and again. The future is not just about sustainability, it’s about a better life, where we can access breakthrough sustainability unconsciously.” At the latest World Economic Forum meeting, Loop announced it had formed circular economy partnerships with Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Mondelēz, and Danone. Customers can order products from a variety of companies that are shipped to them in returnable and reusable containers packed inside a reusable blue Loop container. When the products are consumed, the containers are placed inside a similar Loop container, picked up by UPS or other package delivery service, and returned to the point of origin for re-use. Customers pay a modest service fee of the use of the Loop container. CleanTechnica reader Jessica Feinleib uses the Loop service and can’t say enough good things about it. “This is a great clean tech idea,” she says. Taming the torrent of single use plastic containers is vital to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to an article from EDF on Medium, the International Energy Agency claims in a recent study that the manufacture of plastics will be one of the biggest drivers of an increase in the use of petroleum between now and 2050. In other words, we can all start driving electric cars but oil production — and the carbon emissions from oil — will continue to rise unless we do something about our insatiable appetite for single use plastics. In the final analysis, destroying the world for the sake of convenience is a monumentally dumb idea.  

The problem with plastics has reached a tipping point. And whether you're an environmental crusader or just a citizen of the world, the impact on your life is inevitable. As a social impact professional, the consumer behavior implications underlying this movement is one to watch, no matter your impact area of choice. Starbucks has designed, developed and manufactured a strawless lid, which will become the standard for all iced coffee, tea and espresso beverages CREDIT: STARBUCKS Whether it's California imposing a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at large retail stores, companies like Starbucks pledging to eliminate plastic straws or the commitment of leading companies to “lock up” ocean plastics, companies and consumers alike are starting to feel the pressure to change daily plastic use habits. We all know that consumer behavior change is notoriously tricky to achieve. Several brands are trialing a variety of 'refill and reuse' options around the globe to determine the most feasible ways to help customers become more conscious consumers. A few examples of note: PepsiCo Hydration Station Floor Model 2 CREDIT: PRNEWSFOTO/PEPSICO PepsiCo will roll out a new, mobile-enabled hydration platform in select workplaces, universities and hospitality partners as part of their 'Beyond the Bottle' initiative. The platform is made up of three components: a water dispenser, smartphone app and personalized QR code sticker for reusable bottles that allows consumers to set their own hydration goals, track their environmental impact and save preferences like flavors and carbonation levels. Unilever is partnering with Algramo in Chile to deliver home care products directly to consumer homes. CREDIT: UNILEVER Unilever is piloting an app-powered, intelligent dispensing system that uses electric tricycles to deliver homecare products to people’s homes in Chile. Shoppers buy reusable containers for laundry and dishwashing detergent, create an online account and then arrange a free visit of an electric tricycle to make a home visit to refill their product containers. When the tricycle arrives, consumers simply dispense the desired amount and pay per weight. Alaska Airlines asks flyers to #FillBeforeYouFly CREDIT: PRNEWSWIRE/ALASKA AIRLINES As part of their effort to reduce in-flight waste, Alaska Airlines is encouraging flyers to #FillBeforeYouFly by bringing their own water bottle and filling it before they board. As an incentive, the airline will plant a tree for every passenger who brings a pre-filled water bottle onto their flight and posts a photo to social media tagging @AlaskaAir with the hashtag #FillBeforeYouFly. Unilever's first deodorants to be circular by design are made from stainless steel and developed to last forever. UNILEVER Global recycling organization TerraCycle unveiled a new "circular shopping platform" called Loop that replaces single-use disposable packaging with durable, reusable packaging on products ranging from ice cream to deodorant. Companies piloting the platform include Procter & Gamble, Unilever, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Nestlé, Danone, and UPS. Consumers buy online and products are delivered in a reusable tote. Once finished, Loop picks the product container up from their home, replenishes the products and returns the refilled shipping tote back to the consumer’s doorstep. Whether you're involved in environmental issues such as the impact of plastics or not, the trend is clear: consumer behavior change can make a significant impact on a wide variety of causes. The companies and nonprofit organizations that will ultimately earn consumer attention are those that help make these behavior changes a bit easier to adapt by effectively leveraging innovative partnerships and available technologies.

Ask business executives, environmental activists and academics what it means for a business to be sustainable, and you will get an array of answers. Also, one company’s “sustainable” move could hurt the environment in other ways. Add to that the fact that making any change to an existing business practice is expensive, and it is easy to see the conundrum facing businesses around the world in light of the climate crisis.

There is no single definition of ‘sustainability’

The head of the United Nations is setting a daunting goal at the U.N. climate summit in New York this week: completely transform the world’s economies to be more sustainable and find solutions to climate change. “The climate crisis is caused by us, and the solutions must come from us,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Monday at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York. “There is a cost to everything ,but the biggest cost is doing nothing.” But what does “sustainable” even mean? “There is a crippling vagueness about what sustainability means,” said Geoffrey Jones, a business history professor at Harvard University and the author of “Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship.” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during the opening of the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., September 23, 2019. Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters While carbon emissions are receiving much of the focus because of climate change, deforestation, water shortages and soil erosion are also serious problems that should not be ignored, Jones said. Many companies are buying their electricity from renewable energy, which saves them money in addition to emitting fewer carbon emissions, for example. But some environmentalists have raised concerns that rare materials used in solar panels are mined unsustainably, the panels themselves are not recyclable and solar energy companies do not effectively track their carbon emissions. The lack of a firm definition means there is a lack of accountability, as well. Businesses are increasingly claiming to be sustainable, but few can provide hard evidence that their business practices are not damaging the environment. Last month, a group of Fortune 500 CEOs announced they would no longer make shareholders’ interests their sole priority and promised to “protect the environment by embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.” Environmentalists expressed cautious optimism about the move, saying it needs to be backed up by real change that customers can see. The problem of rhetoric over action has been made starkly clear in investment funds that claim to be socially responsible. Environmental, social and governance, or ESG, funds often include oil and gas companies, which are major contributors to carbon emissions, or other large companies like Coca-Cola, which produces 110 billion single-use plastic bottles per year. Many of the companies included in those funds have taken steps to reduce their environmental impact but are still far from having a neutral or positive impact on the environment.

Determining the value of sustainability

Shifting business practices to be more environmentally-friendly can be expensive, at least in up-front costs, which makes businesses averse to making necessary changes. “Someone can come up with a cost of doing something different much more quickly than determining what is the value to the business,” said Bruno Sarda, president of the Carbon Disclosure Project North America, a nonprofit that collects information about how companies are trying to reduce their environmental impact. It is relatively easy to calculate the savings from buying renewable energy, Sarda said, but not all sustainability solutions are as straight-forward. Changing an entire business supply chain to use more sustainable raw materials or recycle those materials, as Apple has promised to do, is likely to require a costly initial investment even if it would pay off years later. One immediate benefit of implementing sustainable business practices? It can build goodwill with increasingly environmentally-conscious customers. Government regulation can encourage companies to change their practices by putting a higher price tag on environmental damage, but politicians are often hesitant to increase regulations for fear of hurting business.

Consuming less can reduce profits

Supporting real sustainability means encouraging customers to consume less,, environmental experts say. That goal stands in direct contrast to companies’ business models, which is to expand and sell more of their product. But some businesses are trying to find a balance. Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has long advocated for reduced consumption. “We hope our existing customers do indeed buy less. But we hope to attract more customers that are interested in our message: to build the best product, to reduce our impact and cause the least amount of environmental harm,” Doug Freeman, Patagonia’s chief operating officer, told the PBS NewsHour in 2015. Patagonia closed all its stores and offices Friday to allow its employees to join the global climate strike, and it’s pledged to only use renewable or recyclable materials in its products by 2025 as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Patagonia has the flexibility to make these decisions that could cut into profits in the short-term because it’s a privately held company so it is not pressured to show quarterly growth like publicly-traded companies. Patagonia’s products, however, are more expensive than many other companies, which makes marketing difficult in a marketplace where consumers tend to choose the cheapest option. For Patagonia’s model to work in the larger marketplace, consumers either have to believe that the higher price they are paying for a product now will save them money later because they are paying for a higher-quality product and will not have to replace it in the near future, or they have to be willing to pay the higher price in exchange for being more environmentally friendly. Both scenarios require a change in mindset, which economists say is not easy to achieve.

Climate solutions require collective action

The economic problem known as the “tragedy of the commons” posits that people believe if they do not use a natural resource, someone else will, and they will lose out. That mindset leads people (and companies) to deplete valuable resources. As a way to get around this problem, companies have been teaming up with each other and with environmentally-focused nonprofits. Loop is one such effort. Earlier this year, Walgreens and Kroger partnered with TerraCycle, a waste management company, to sell dozens of consumer products through a circular shopping system. Customers of Loop can buy a wide variety of products, from pasta to shampoo, in reusable containers. The products are delivered to the customers’ homes and, when they are empty, the containers can be picked up to be cleaned and reused. Delivery boxes with the logo of Loop are displayed before the news conference held by French retailer Carrefour and U.S. waste recycling firm TerraCycle to launch Loop, an e-commerce service to cut the flow of single-use plastic containers in Paris, France May 14, 2019. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes By working together, companies gain more leverage in the national and global marketplace and legitimacy in the eyes of consumers, said Joanne Sonenshine, the CEO of Connective Impact, a sustainability business consulting firm based in the Washington, D.C.-area. “If you have a group of very respectable nonprofits or research agencies saying we are working with this company because we believe they can make a change, that puts a lot of credence behind what they are trying to do,” Sonenshine said. But Loop is only currently available to customers in a handful of northeastern states, and while other companies are creating similar circular economic models, environmental activists warn that they aren’t being adopted quickly enough to address the looming threat of climate change.

From food manufacturers to e-commerce giants, the pressure is on to have at least some form of sustainable business practice as more consumers align with environmentally-friendly businesses. Loop is one way some larger brands are starting to dabble in becoming greener without resorting to completely uproot their existing supply chains. Created by recycling company TerraCycle, the online platform allows customers to shop from their favorite brands in a cleaner, more environment-friendly manner using reusable containers. After filling out your online shopping bag via the Loop online shopping platform, the products are stored in several sturdy, reusable containers before sending the bulk of them to you. Users simply just have to pay a small deposit for the durable, multi-use package designs—not unlike glass milk bottles from the days of milkmen. Rather than using discardable containers that usually end up in the trash, food items like your favorite Häagen-Dazs ice cream are stored in containers designed specifically for the product (in this case, the ice cream is stored in a stainless steel container). Not only is it greener, but the reusable container keeps the ice cream frozen for much longer—proving that functional upgrade considerations also went into the design of the new containers. Says the company: “Most products today are “linear” – thrown away after they’re used (typically once). This one-way model sends valuable resources to the trash. In a “circular” system, that line is bent into a circle that keeps resources in use and cycling through the system for as long as possible. The goal of the circular economy is to make those circles as tight as possible by reducing the number of steps (and the resulting energy, transportation and resources needed) to get our products from useless to useful again.” This call towards reusable packaging is inspiring brands to think about how they design their products. Toothpaste, for instance, doesn’t fit well in a reusable container; so Unilever has created several chewable toothpaste tablets which are stored in a tin (think of it as chewing gum which cleans your mouth). Participating Brands and Updated Package Design Details (via Packaging World):

• Pantene is introducing a unique bottle made with lightweight, durable aluminum for its shampoo and conditioner.
• Tide is participating in Loop with its Tide purclean plant-based laundry detergent in a new durable bottle made from stainless steel with a simple twist-cap and easy-pour spout.
• Cascade, continually looking for ways to make the dish cleaning experience better and environmentally friendly, has developed a new ultra-durable packaging for Cascade ActionPacs, which enable consumers to skip the prewash.
• Crest is introducing new Crest Platinum mouthwash, a unique formula that delivers fresh breath and stain prevention in a sustainable, refillable glass bottle.
• Ariel and Febreze are participating with durable, refillable packaging that is also available in stores, testing a new direct-to-consumer refill-and-reuse model.

Once you’re done with the containers, all you have to do is store the containers back in the provided tote bag (no cleaning needed) and call Loop to pick it up. You’ll get your deposit back and have free space to store new shopping items.

Over the last few months, I and dozens (if not hundreds) of others have placed orders for common household items from Loop — a new e-commerce site that attempts to eliminate the immense amount of single-use packaging and filler that comes with shopping, online or in-store. The platform officially launched its e-commerce site in May with roughly 25 vendors and two major retail partners in Kroger and Walgreens. The platform is currently available to consumers in select zip codes in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington D.C. and Paris. At the launch event in May, participating vendors and retailers, along with CEO Tom Szaky of TerraCycle (the recycling company behind the concept), made it clear the early days are an experiment from which the various stakeholders will learn how consumers use the platform. These insights would inform future evolutions of the product. A good start but, by no means, the ultimate form Loop will take.

It feels like good old e-commerce but ...

The process feels very much like a traditional e-commerce transaction with a few exceptions. Shoppers choose their items, each with a base price and an additional container deposit to be refunded when the item is returned empty. Then the items are shipped via UPS in a reusable zippered box the size of medium-sized cooler. I placed my order Friday, May 31 and received it Tuesday, June 4.