TO RECYCLE OR REUSE? — Tom Szaky isn’t rooting for the collapse of the recycling business — but he is prepared to capitalize on it. Szaky, founder of reusable packaging startup Loop, is trying to persuade Americans to return to the days of the milkman, only this time shampoo, peanut butter and ice cream would arrive on doorsteps in specially designed containers and the empties returned for refills. “When less things become recyclable, our relevance increases,” Szaky tells The Long Game. “We’re a reaction to a failing recycling system.” Loop works with brands including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé and Mars to create durable packaging that Loop cleans and sells back to them. Kroger plans to begin selling Loop products in some of its West Coast grocery stores by the end of this year, and Walgreens stores on the East Coast will join next year, Szaky says. The company is valued at $100 million, with more than 100,000 customers so far on its online testing platforms.

Before COVID-19, people all over the world had been more focused than ever before on the issue of sustainability. Coordinated climate strikes, beginning in the spring of 2019 and continuing through the end of that year, conveyed the growing environmental concerns of global citizens. Employees and customers had increasingly expressed an interest in businesses taking stances and action on sustainability. And consumer data showed rising sales^PDF of products with sustainability features.   Fast forward to today: The pandemic has exposed the fragility of the world and heightened people’s appreciation of sustainability. How many of us have appreciated cleaner air and paid more attention to labor conditions, given essential workers’ greater virus exposure? Consumer insights reflect this sensitivity. More than half of respondents to a recent survey conducted by management consulting firm Kearney said that as a result of their COVID-19 experience, they are more likely to buy environmentally friendly products. And unpublished PwC research shows that 75 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed believe companies should maintain changes they’ve made due to COVID-19 that have a positive environmental impact. At the same time, though, the deep economic crisis the virus has caused is making shoppers more price-sensitive and forcing many companies to do whatever it takes to simply stay afloat. Companies, even those with sustainability in their DNA, might put some or all environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives on hold to stem revenue losses. However, early data suggests that prioritizing sustainability could boost financial performance. As of early April, big ESG-focused funds were outperforming the S&P 500 for the year to date. This could reflect investors’ long-term view. Recent research by the Conference Board also highlights how a commitment to sustainability can help companies weather crises and recover faster. Companies will need to be creative and more focused than ever, though, to make their sustainability strategies financially viable, considering reduced corporate income and consumers’ renewed frugality. Long before the pandemic, Unilever’s chief research and development officer, Richard Slater, highlighted companies’ lead role in mainstreaming sustainability when he said in an interview on NPR, “The onus is on us as consumer companies to innovate and come up with solutions that are great for people…[and]…convenient at the right price.”

Evidence that consumers care

A growing number of consumers — along with employees and investors — want to associate with brands whose values they identify with. According to a global consumer survey by the Conference Board, about two-thirds of respondents have bought brands because of their environmental practices, more than half have dropped brands because they don’t provide fair labor conditions, and a significant share have at some point either switched brands or moved away from brands because of the social causes they support. Dichotomy in consumer motivation — between caring about a cause but also about functional features and price — makes pursuing a sustainability agenda complicated. Soon-to-be-published global PwC research shows that consumers think government bears the biggest responsibility for encouraging sustainable behaviors and lifestyles. Those surveyed put themselves in second place, right after the government and ahead of manufacturers/producers, retailers, and other institutions. The survey also found an increase in the number of people making sustainability-conscious decisions year over year. The percentage of survey respondents who avoid plastics when possible rose from 41 percent to 45 percent, and the percentage of those who consciously choose sustainable ways to travel rose from 28 percent to 32 percent. People’s purchasing choices don’t always fall in line with their attitudes about sustainability, but recent purchase data indicates that in some categories, words and actions more or less align. In the U.S., the percentage of overall store sales made up of sustainable consumer packaged goods (CPG) grew from 19.7 percent in 2014 to 22.3 percent in 2017, and is expected to reach 25 percent by 2021. Sales of products with on-package sustainability claims, such as USDA Organic or “no phosphates,” grew almost six times faster^PDF than conventional products from 2013 to 2018 (up 29 percent), accounting for about half of all CPG growth despite the category’s small market share. However, the Conference Board’s global consumer research shows that shoppers have considered sustainable features to be more an appreciated bonus than a core purchase driver. For example, environmental impact ranks only fifth among surveyed consumers’ decision criteria for daily mode of transportation, after speed to destination, cost, convenience, and safety. As Warby Parker cofounder and co-CEO Neil Blumenthal put it in an interview with Inc. magazine, “While customers certainly love the fact that we give back, at the end of the day, it’s not a critical factor in deciding whether to buy a pair of glasses.”

How companies can respond

This dichotomy in consumer motivation — between caring about a cause but also about functional features and price — makes pursuing a sustainability agenda complicated. Yet, doing so can help to differentiate a brand, delight customers, and ultimately create brand and financial value. Those looking to market sustainable offerings should consider the following suggestions. Couple sustainability features with other benefits. Companies can innovate, creating sustainable products and services superior to unsustainable alternatives. For instance, recycling company TerraCycle offers a circular packaging and delivery system called Loop that sends customers products in well-designed containers that can be returned for cleaning and reuse. Many companies, including leading ice cream, shampoo, and mouthwash brands, are part of the program. Consumers have to pay a deposit that’s sometimes double the product price, but people don’t mind. Why? Two-thirds of Loop shoppers indicate that the higher-end aesthetics and functionality of the containers are actually more important to them than the program’s sustainability benefits. For example, Häagen-Dazs’s dual-layered Loop cups keep ice cream frozen but aren’t too cold to hold comfortably, and the containers’ rounded bottom corners makes scooping easier. The fact that the Loop system is eco-friendly is a bonus. Paul Gaudio, global creative director for Adidas, explains the sustainability-as-a-bonus philosophy this way: “I don’t want people to buy it because it’s recyclable. I want people to buy it because it’s awesome. And oh, by the way, it’s recycled.” Minimize the sustainability price premium. Price can deter people from buying sustainable offerings, according to the Conference Board’s research. And in this time of pandemic-induced crisis, with many consumers suffering financial losses, this might be truer than ever. So, achieving cost efficiency is critical to keeping prices low. Companies can do this through innovation and partnerships — including with competitors. For example: Even pre-crisis, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive were committed to making their discoveries and technologies for recycling plastics accessible to others in the industry. This helps increase the supply of recycled plastics for all participating companies, while saving other businesses needless development costs. Plus, it advances companies’ sustainability goals and addresses consumer interests. Companies can also launch pricing plans that reward repeat purchases of sustainable products or services. Take Adidas’s circular economy service, Infinite Play, which is available in the U.K. and gives people gift cards or loyalty club points in exchange for their used Adidas items. Educate consumers about sustainability features and build trust. Many consumers find it time-consuming to gather information about a brand’s sustainability features — additionally, they don’t trust claims, or they find them confusing. According to the Conference Board’s survey, this lack of understanding is a key barrier to consumers buying sustainable brands, especially when it comes to awareness of fair labor conditions and wages. So, brands need to clearly communicate with their customers in concrete terms, disclosing information such as the amount of packaging saved or how they’ve enhanced certain working conditions. The COVID-19 crisis has inspired companies to do exactly that: It has put employee-related policies and crisis response in the spotlight, so businesses across the board have been communicating frequently with the public about these issues. To strengthen consumer awareness and trust, companies can also seek independent certification and inclusion in app-based directories that provide information about products’ sustainability features. Give sustainable consumption social currency. Like luxury goods, sustainable products often involve premium quality, craftsmanship, storytelling, and significant intangible value. For example, two different in-store experiments, one with fair trade–labeled coffee and another with a socially conscious–labeled Banana Republic women’s suit  — ordinary items, but not the cheapest in their categories — showed that the sustainability labels enhanced demand. Sustainability features also seem to grant emotional benefits, including the satisfaction of consuming more consciously and subtly signaling status. Brands can support, facilitate, and even encourage this status signaling with tools similar to virtuous behavior badges, such as “I voted” stickers, pink ribbons, or fitness trackers. For example, research has shown positive effects on hotel guests’ towel reusage when they can show their “green support” by wearing a pin or hanging a card on their door. All crises offer new opportunities. The current one may be a test for sustainability, but it could also instigate a new level of corporate creativity and innovation along the sustainability value chain.

While there’s no scientific evidence to support this claim, there’s a widely shared consensus that most people eat ice cream directly out of the container. While a seemingly unimportant detail in the production of this popular dessert, for Nestlé, it was one of the most critical considerations as it planned out a new, radical design for its Häagen-Dazs ice cream brand. In January of 2019, Nestlé announced a partnership with TerraCycle, a global recycling organization that was rolling out a first-of-its-kind home delivery service called Loop. TerraCycle, known for its mission to eliminate waste by creating new products from the collection of hard-to-recycle materials, has been around for two decades. Last year, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky unveiled Loop, a shopping platform that will enable people to consume products in customized, brand-specific, durable packaging that is collected, cleaned, and refilled. As the world shines a spotlight on sustainability initiatives that factor in recycling single-use packaging, Loop takes the eco-friendly, green model to the next level by introducing reusable containers. And some of the biggest food and beverage and consumer package goods (CPG) companies including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Clorox, Mars, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, and more, were onboard for the pilot program that launched last year. For its part, Nestlé joined Loop as it committed to expanding its global efforts to develop new packaging designs that minimize the impact on the environment, noting that by 2025 the company plans to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable. As part of the Loop pilot program, Häagen-Dazs ice cream was delivered in a reusable, stainless-steel, double-walled ice cream container, which keeps product fresh and cold while maintaining the pint at a comfortable temperature for the person eating the ice cream straight from the container. The design also enables the ice cream to melt quicker at the top, and its rounded edges means the last spoonful doesn’t get stuck in the corners of the container. “The package design process was a critical part of the entire Loop process,” said Steve Yeh, a project manager at Häagen-Dazs. “It’s not just about making a reusable container, it’s also about creating a high-touch consumer experience.” According to Yeh, the Häagen-Dazs package went through a total of 15 iterations before it finally launched. “Nestlé committed major resources to design and develop the original package.” The team also worked closely with Loop on developing breakthrough cooling technology for the Loop Tote, which the ice cream container is delivered in via UPS. Terracycle officials admit there is a cost to manufacturing partners committing to Loop—from the investment in new durable packaging to the design of the product to the time spent understanding how to handle new packaging lines and how to scale to meet demand. But the reality today is that sustainability efforts are here to stay. And any new endeavor is going to require an upfront investment. According to a new business intelligence report from PMMI, the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies (and Automation World parent company), packaging sustainability has moved beyond a trend and is now a global shift. Released in March 2020, the report, “Packaging Sustainability: A Changing Landscape,” reveals how sustainable packaging initiatives at CPGs are affecting machines, materials, and packaging formats. The report states that the global sustainable packaging market reported that total value of revenue was estimated at $220 billion in 2018 and is predicted to reach $280 billion in 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 6%. The report is based on information collected from 100 sources and 60 interviews. The majority of the CPGs interviewed are looking to switch to lighter weight, recyclable, and sustainable materials to reduce waste. About 36% of the CPGs interviewed are exploring the circular model of reuse/return/refill. The circular economy For decades consumers have been participating in the “throwaway lifestyle,” where single-use products are disposed of resulting in massive amounts of waste. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the total generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2017 was 267.8 million tons or 4.51 pounds per person per day. Of the MSW generated, more than 94 million tons of MSW were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 35.2% recycling and composting rate. In other words, we don’t have a good track record for recycling. TerraCycle thought there must be another way—which is Loop. “The genesis of Loop is a tighter, closed-loop system that has manufacturers taking back ownership of their packaging,” said Ben Weir, Loops’ business development manager for North America. “It’s bringing about the reusability of packaging in something that is durable and long-lasting and that can be cleaned and used hundreds of times.” It’s not a new concept, but rather a throwback to the milkman model in which consumers returned the glass containers. What’s new is the aesthetic benefits that will drive consumer brand perception—and, while not obvious at first—it is a better economic model for the manufacturer. “The concept of a circular economy is an economic model, not a sustainability framework,” said Tim Debus, president and CEO of the Reusable Packaging Association (RPA). “By decoupling growth from the consumption of finite resources, maintaining product values at their highest, and building market resilience to source material disruptions. It is estimated that the circular economy offers $4.5 trillion of value from new growth and innovation opportunities, and the world today is only 8.6% circular.” There is an enormous opportunity, but manufacturers may hesitate due to the upfront investment related to packaging design and retooling machinery. According to Nestlé’s Yeh, the company used its Bakersfield, Calif., facility to ramp up its production of ice cream in reusable and durable containers for the Loop pilot project. “We decided to retrofit an existing line to support the platform versus investing in a new line. It was not an easy changeover and required some reengineering. Some of the changes involved installing more modern equipment including better code daters and more modern metal detection.” Yeh said they also incorporated improvements to existing processes, which requires additional staff to handle the containers. “Once the platform expands, we would then visit a fully automated system.”

Lately you may have seen the words zero waste on your body lotion (and if that’s the case, we applaud you). It’s an emerging trend within the beauty industry, and as someone who has spent the better part of a decade reporting on such matters, it’s the trend I am most excited about. To get a better understanding of what this term actually means, I spoke to Tiila Abbitt, the CEO and founder of Aether Beauty, a sustainable makeup company that launched the first zero-waste eye shadow palette in the industry. "Zero waste means making sure nothing ends up in a landfill," explains Abbitt. "That can mean a few things: One is that a product is reusable, another is that it can actually be recycled." (I’m going to interrupt here briefly to drop in that oft-quoted National Geographic stat about how 91 percent of plastic ends up in landfills.) "And on that note, it’s making sure there is no packaging or packaging waste. The main idea is to limit what actually goes directly in your trash." And it's not just the indie brands who are making strides toward sustainability. Procter & Gamble (the parent company behind Dove, Secret and Herbal Essences) joined forces with TerraCycle’s LOOP program last year, which provides shoppers with a simple website where they can request pick-ups and order refills of popular household products like shampoo and laundry detergent. "The idea of adopting a zero-waste routine can be intimidating because people think they have to completely switch up their entire lifestyle, but this isn’t about perfection," says Abbitt. "We don’t need a few people creating a zero-waste lifestyle perfectly. We need millions of people trying their best, thinking more about their own footprint and making better choices with the goods they are purchasing, however imperfectly, to make a difference." In sum, it’s not an all-or-nothing affair. So, how else can we be start being more conscious of our consumption? "Look for products that have less waste, are package-free or are fully recyclable. And avoid single-use items like face wipes and cotton rounds," shares Abbitt. We’re also fans of recycling programs from brands like M.A.C. and Lush, who offer new products in exchange for empties. And beyond carefully choosing your beauty products, start bringing reusable items like shopping bags, coffee mugs and water bottles, utensils and metal straws with you for when you are out and about. OK, now who’s ready to shop some of our favorite sustainable beauty products?

Loop, the zero-waste, refillable packaging delivery service, has announced that it is expanding nationally in the US this summer and coming soon to the UK, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Terracycle, which runs the service, has partnered with Kroger and Walgreens in the US, Loblaw in Canada, Tesco in the UK, and Carrefour in France. Terracycle piloted the Loop service in New York and Paris and later expanded to a few regions along the US east coast. Consumers order products from over 200 brands, including products from major international consumer goods companies such as Unilever, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble. Customers place orders online and receive it in a reusable Loop tote, with all of the products within coming in refillable packaging. Goods range from pantry items, perishables, home goods, and personal care products. Once finished, users request a pickup for empties, which is then picked up. Your empty containers go back to Terracycle, where they are then cleaned, sanitized, and refilled for the next customer. The announcement comes as consumers flock to grocery delivery services from companies such as Instacart and Amazon over fears of contracting COVID-19 and being in the vicinity of possibly contagious shoppers in-store. While delivery services provide relief from possible contact with coronavirus, Loop is the only service that offers zero-waste packaging. Loop is currently inviting interested consumers to sign up on their waiting list.

Sustainability efforts for beauty companies may cost more in the short term, but often pay out over time. Beauty brands that want to be part of TerraCycle’s Loop program must develop durable packaging that can be reused at least 10 times. It costs more for businesses upfront, but has the potential to help brands reduce their packaging costs over the long term. It’s one example of the return on investment for sustainability — Ren, Pantene, Melanin Essentials, Love, Beauty and Planet, Soapply, Plaine and The Body Shop are among the brands working with and selling through the Loop operation. “Manufacturers are hitting parity on price and sustainability anywhere from two to three uses sometimes,” said Benjamin Weir, Loop’s director of business development and sales innovation. “We’re pushing the system to be as durable and as reusable as possible.” For Procter & Gamble, which has invested in Loop, the cost of making Loop-approved packaging is actually more expensive — but the business views it as an investment in learning. “While ROI is definitely something we are getting in certain pockets of our business, it is not the sole criteria for learning in this space, particularly with some of the pilots we are running,” said Anitra Marsh, associate director of global sustainability and brand communications at P&G Beauty. Marsh was referencing Loop, as well as Olay Whips refills, which launched in the fall. “We have to learn before we can bring things to scale.” Another P&G pilot launches Monday: The business is testing paper board tube packaging for deodorant, available exclusively at Walmart. “If you’re looking at return on investment, sustainability initiatives are the long game. There are no short wins with sustainability,” said Sarah Jindal, Mintel’s senior innovation and insights analyst for beauty and personal care. She called Loop’s efforts “a great example of that initial upfront investment that pays in bucketloads,” and said renewable energy is another key example. “At some point, once you’ve made that initial investment, you no longer have an electric bill that you’re paying to someone else,” she said. P&G, for example, has saved more than half-a-billion dollars after years of energy conservation programs across the company, said Kelly Vanasse, chief communications officer for P&G beauty and grooming. “That’s one example — the work we’re doing on zero waste to landfill, it’s the same thing.…The more we continue to realize those successes, it just creates a virtuous circle.” Jindal stressed that the timing of returns from sustainability initiatives can vary. “Returns will come in many different forms at many different levels at many different time points,” Jindal said. Unilever, for example, has started to see increasing sales momentum from “sustainable living brands.” Sustainable living brands grew 69 percent faster than the rest of the business in 2018, compared with 46 percent faster in 2017, the company said. Biossance, the skin-care line born out of biotech operation Amyris, has worked to build up its own virtuous circle — a sustainable supply chain in order to offer Amyris-produced squalane to the broader beauty market at “desirable price points,” said president Catherine Gore. “The promised land is really connecting sustainable ingredients, sustainable thinking, sustainable manufacturing and sustainable packaging with the cost effective-nature of that. We’ll really hit our sweet spot when all of the brands can afford to make these types of changes.” Biossance’s key sustainability initiatives revolve around sustainable sugarcane in Brazil. The company makes its own squalane with that sugarcane, versus harvesting from sharks. Sugarcane stalks are used for boxes, and gas off-put is used to power the plant. “All of that has been optimized so we can offer squalane by the ton to consumers and brands worldwide at a much more desirable price point than [killing sharks],” Gore said. “The whole idea is to keep the mission first, and in order for that to be accessible, it has to be at the right price point.” There’s also a softer side to the ROI equation. As sustainability permeates consumer consciousness, companies and brands that have taken steps in earth-friendly directions expect to see dividends coming in the form of consumer loyalty. “The concept of brand loyalty…has kind of flown out the window, but this view on sustainability — because it is becoming so important to the consumer, and it is so visible to the consumer — that becomes one of those really important parts of, ‘do I want to buy from this brand, or do I want to buy from that brand?” said Jindal. “That loyal relationship becomes really important in the fragmented world we’re living in where you’ve got new brands popping up almost every single day,” Jindal said. Right now, consumers are at the stage where they notice obvious things, Jindal said, like packaging. But as beauty companies delve deeper into sustainability and talk openly about their initiatives, consumer expectations are likely to evolve. “The more prevalent that information becomes, it becomes that much more important to a wider range of consumers,” Jindal said. “They’ll look at [company practices] and say, ‘you know what, I don’t agree with the practices of that company, so I won’t buy from them anymore.’ It’s as simple as that, to flip that switch, because there are so many brands out there they can choose from.” For Biossance, sustainability is a key part of customer retention. “There’s a large community that’s very close to our shark-saving initiative,” Gore said. The company estimates that by producing squalane, it saves two million sharks per year. That, combined with Environmental Working Group certification and other commitments, like zero waste by 2025, compostable boxes and going carbon neutral in 2020, keep customers coming back. “As we share those stories, it holistically brings a very dedicated community together that believes in the sustainability, wants to put their purchase power toward that, and trusts in the brand,” Gore said. P&G also sees customers caring more about sustainability. “When we have products consumers love, they’re like, ‘OK, I love your product — now help me love your product even more. What are you doing from a sustainability perspective?’ Everyone wants to do the right thing…today, doing the right thing is being more sustainable,” Vanasse said.

"There are no short wins with sustainability."

Sustainability efforts for beauty companies may cost more in the short term, but often pay out over time. Beauty brands that want to be part of TerraCycle’s Loop program must develop durable packaging that can be reused at least 10 times. It costs more for businesses upfront, but has the potential to help brands reduce their packaging costs over the long term. It’s one example of the return on investment for sustainability — Ren, Pantene, Melanin Essentials, Love, Beauty and Planet, Soapply, Plaine and The Body Shop are among the brands working with and selling through the Loop operation. “Manufacturers are hitting parity on price and sustainability anywhere from two to three uses sometimes,” said Benjamin Weir, Loop’s director of business development and sales innovation. “We’re pushing the system to be as durable and as reusable as possible.” For Procter & Gamble, which has invested in Loop, the cost of making Loop-approved packaging is actually more expensive — but the business views it as an investment in learning. “While ROI is definitely something we are getting in certain pockets of our business, it is not the sole criteria for learning in this space, particularly with some of the pilots we are running,” said Anitra Marsh, associate director of global sustainability and brand communications at P&G Beauty. Marsh was referencing Loop, as well as Olay Whips refills, which launched in the fall. “We have to learn before we can bring things to scale.” Another P&G pilot launches Monday: The business is testing paper board tube packaging for deodorant, available exclusively at Walmart. “If you’re looking at return on investment, sustainability initiatives are the long game. There are no short wins with sustainability,” said Sarah Jindal, Mintel’s senior innovation and insights analyst for beauty and personal care. She called Loop’s efforts “a great example of that initial upfront investment that pays in bucketloads,” and said renewable energy is another key example. “At some point, once you’ve made that initial investment, you no longer have an electric bill that you’re paying to someone else,” she said. P&G, for example, has saved more than half-a-billion dollars after years of energy conservation programs across the company, said Kelly Vanasse, chief communications officer for P&G beauty and grooming. “That’s one example — the work we’re doing on zero waste to landfill, it’s the same thing.…The more we continue to realize those successes, it just creates a virtuous circle.” Jindal stressed that the timing of returns from sustainability initiatives can vary. “Returns will come in many different forms at many different levels at many different time points,” Jindal said. Unilever, for example, has started to see increasing sales momentum from “sustainable living brands.” Sustainable living brands grew 69 percent faster than the rest of the business in 2018, compared with 46 percent faster in 2017, the company said. Biossance, the skin-care line born out of biotech operation Amyris, has worked to build up its own virtuous circle — a sustainable supply chain in order to offer Amyris-produced squalane to the broader beauty market at “desirable price points,” said president Catherine Gore. “The promised land is really connecting sustainable ingredients, sustainable thinking, sustainable manufacturing and sustainable packaging with the cost effective-nature of that. We’ll really hit our sweet spot when all of the brands can afford to make these types of changes.” Biossance’s key sustainability initiatives revolve around sustainable sugarcane in Brazil. The company makes its own squalane with that sugarcane, versus harvesting from sharks. Sugarcane stalks are used for boxes, and gas off-put is used to power the plant. “All of that has been optimized so we can offer squalane by the ton to consumers and brands worldwide at a much more desirable price point than [killing sharks],” Gore said. “The whole idea is to keep the mission first, and in order for that to be accessible, it has to be at the right price point.” There’s also a softer side to the ROI equation. As sustainability permeates consumer consciousness, companies and brands that have taken steps in earth-friendly directions expect to see dividends coming in the form of consumer loyalty. “The concept of brand loyalty…has kind of flown out the window, but this view on sustainability — because it is becoming so important to the consumer, and it is so visible to the consumer — that becomes one of those really important parts of, ‘do I want to buy from this brand, or do I want to buy from that brand?” said Jindal. “That loyal relationship becomes really important in the fragmented world we’re living in where you’ve got new brands popping up almost every single day,” Jindal said. Right now, consumers are at the stage where they notice obvious things, Jindal said, like packaging. But as beauty companies delve deeper into sustainability and talk openly about their initiatives, consumer expectations are likely to evolve. “The more prevalent that information becomes, it becomes that much more important to a wider range of consumers,” Jindal said. “They’ll look at [company practices] and say, ‘you know what, I don’t agree with the practices of that company, so I won’t buy from them anymore.’ It’s as simple as that, to flip that switch, because there are so many brands out there they can choose from.” For Biossance, sustainability is a key part of customer retention. “There’s a large community that’s very close to our shark-saving initiative,” Gore said. The company estimates that by producing squalane, it saves two million sharks per year. That, combined with Environmental Working Group certification and other commitments, like zero waste by 2025, compostable boxes and going carbon neutral in 2020, keep customers coming back. “As we share those stories, it holistically brings a very dedicated community together that believes in the sustainability, wants to put their purchase power toward that, and trusts in the brand,” Gore said. P&G also sees customers caring more about sustainability. “When we have products consumers love, they’re like, ‘OK, I love your product — now help me love your product even more. What are you doing from a sustainability perspective?’ Everyone wants to do the right thing…today, doing the right thing is being more sustainable,” Vanasse said.

For several generations of young Americans, the idea of a ‘milkman’ is a completely foreign concept. But if you lived in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and you were in the middle-class, you likely had a delivery truck dropping off fresh bottles of milk on your front porch—and you would leave the empties outside to be picked up. It was super convenient—and, better yet, there was no waste generated in the process. With tons of plastic containers overrunning landfills, and an innovative partnership of consumer brands emerging, the milkman idea of circulating containers is making a comeback. Loop launched in Paris and New York one year ago as a company that ships customers their favorite products packaged in reusable stainless steel or glass containers to be collected later for cleaning and refilling—just like your grandfather’s milk. They quickly expanding their operation to cover much of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region, and this month Loop will be bringing their pioneering business model to the UK, a move they hope will make them the biggest eliminator of single-use plastics in the global grocery market. They also announced plans to expand soon into Canada, Germany, and Japan. Loop teamed up with some of the biggest consumer industry giants to create eco-versions of hundreds of popular products like Tropicana, Haagen-Dazs, or Hellmann’s mayonnaise; cleaning products like Tide and Clorox wipes; and skin and hair care essentials like deodorants, from companies like Dove, Pantene, L’Oreal, and Crest. Procter & Gamble, Loop’s biggest partner, which also owns a 2 percent stake in the enterprise, tapped into 10 of its most iconic brands as part of the Loop 2019 launch, including Ariel, Cascade, Crest, Febreze, Gillette, Pantene, Pampers, and Tide, according to GreenBiz. Image by Loop Stateside, the refillable products are available at Kroger and Walgreens, in addition to the online Loop store, and they cost nearly the same as their plastic counterparts, except for the cost of a deposit. Founded by the brilliant recycling company TerraCycle, Loop plans to expand across the U.S. this year where more consumers in specific zip codes can place empties inside their Loop insulated zipper tote on the doorstep—to be picked up, washed, and reused. In France, where Loop has already partnered with Carrefour—one of the largest grocery chains in Europe, consumers pay a small deposit on the items purchased, in case the packages aren’t returned later. This includes small bottles, where a deposit might only be a few cents, or large tubs that might contain laundry soap or paper towels. 1953 photo by Ben van Meerendonk / AHF, collectie IISG, Amsterdam When asked about the hefty carbon footprint of shipping the products all over the country and then shipping them back for washing and refilling, Loop’s founder, the mastermind of Terracycle, Tom Szaky, explained that if you add up all the energy and shipping it takes to create and distribute plastic, the carbon footprint is cut in half—plus you are digging up the actual root of the plastic problem, so it can be eliminated. Furthermore, as drone delivery technology becomes more and more feasible in major cities, delivery will become much cheaper and more energy efficient. Companies like DHL, UPS, Amazon, Google, Dominoes, Rakuten, and 7-11 all have drone-delivery technology. According to the Business Insider 2018-2020 report on online grocery shopping, 10% of consumers utilize online grocery store options, while the market value of these services doubled from $12 billion in 2016 to $26 billion in 2018 and shows no sign of slowing down. It’s possible that in the next ten years thanks to companies like Loop, all the benefits of the friendly neighborhood milkman will be resurrected to create a healthier planet for all.  

Companies like Coca-Cola used to collect 98 percent of their bottles, and new entrepreneurs are learning from their tactics. TRENTON, NEW JERSEYIn the flood of innovative solutions that have emerged in the last several years to save the world from plastic pollution, Tom Szaky’s fix may be one of the most audacious. Don’t misunderstand. He has not tried to come up with yet another formula to make plastic magically biodegrade like leaves on the ground, a goal of many entrepreneurs that remains elusive. Nor has he devised new ways to remake disposable plastic packaging into new plastic packaging. Instead, Szaky has gone old school with a concept that dates to the turn of the last century—returnable, refillable containers. The idea was introduced to the world by Coca-Cola in the early 1920s, when Coke was sold in expensive glass bottles that the company’s bottlers needed back. They charged a two-cent deposit, roughly 40 percent of the full cost of the soft drink, and got about 98 percent of their bottles back, to be reused 40 or 50 times. Bottle deposit programs remain one of the most effective methods ever invented for recovering packaging. Ten months ago, Szaky launched Loop, an online delivery service that uses sturdy, reusable containers. The bold part of his venture—or risk, if you are one of his financial backers—is that Loop pushes far beyond the uniformity of returnable beverage bottles and sells more than 300 items, from food to laundry detergent, in containers of various sizes and made from various materials. His signature product is Haagen-Dazs ice cream that comes packed inside a sleek, insulated stainless steel tub guaranteed to prevent its contents from melting. Slightly disheveled in jeans and a hoodie, Szaky looks every bit the millennial entrepreneur. Now 38, he dropped out of Princeton 17 years ago to become an innovator in the garbage business. He founded TerraCycle, a small waste management company, 10 miles from the Princeton campus. He figured out a way to recycle diapers, cigarette butts, and a long list of other non-recyclables. In time, he became more interested in restoring the circularity of that earlier era and eliminating the disposability from packaging altogether. “Loop’s theory is let’s learn from the past and go back to a model where when you buy your deodorant, you’re borrowing the package and just paying for the content,” he says.   This refillable steel Häagen-Dazs ice cream container is from Loop, a company that packages everyday items into reusable containers. Loop is part of the resurgence of refillables as a serious option to plastic waste. The beverage industry is expanding its use of returnable bottles; an Oregon brewery claims to have started the United States’ first state-wide refillable beer system. More significantly, efforts like Loop’s to reinvent packaging for products that don’t fit easily into the refillable category have attracted startups and some of the world’s largest corporate players. Starbucks and McDonalds are partnering in a pilot program in California known as the NextGen Cup Challenge to sell coffee in reusable cups. If it works, the companies could spare the world the remains of billions of paper cups lined with a thin film of plastic that prevents leakage. And in Chile, a small startup called Algramo is working to replace single-serving packets known as sachets that are sold by the billions in Africa and Asia. The concept was to make coffee, toothpaste and other products affordable to impoverished people who couldn’t afford to buy in larger amounts. Sachets are mostly not recyclable and have made the glut of plastic litter in those nations worse. Algramo, whose name means “by the gram” in Spanish, is creating a vending machine system to dispense food and cleaning products into reusable containers. Last December, it won the National Geographic and Sky Ventures Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge’s prize for using circular economy principles and a $100,000 purse. As Szaky tours Loop’s warehouse, where newly filled containers are shipped out and returned empties taken in, he notes the irony that this age-old method has only flowered again because waste has become a global crisis. “Five years ago, we couldn’t have done this,” he says. No one would have signed on. Not consumers, who pay a healthy, refundable deposit. And not the companies he’s convinced to join his experiment. Consumers and product retailers might have laughed at the idea as too unrealistic and inconvenient, neither being the ingredients for success.The shipping expenses alone, which involve up to six transfers, would have given investors pause. Then, almost overnight, the game changed. Szaky pitched his idea to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and convinced Nestle, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, among others, to sign on.

A spotlight on plastic waste grows

It’s easy to lose sight of how quickly the landscape of plastics has shifted. Only a decade ago scientists and plastic manufacturers and retailers were still arguing about whether disposable plastic was even a serious issue. In 2011, when Ocean Conservancy met with scientists, activists, and plastics industry executives in an effort to set up what eventually became, in 2012, the Trash Free Alliance so all parties could work together, no consensus on the issue existed. “There was the question, is this just unsightly or a real problem?” recalls George Leonard, the conservancy’s chief scientist. “People retracted back into their corners. The NGOs said, ‘The world is coming to an end,’ and the industry sector said, ‘We don’t think it’s a problem.’” The debate effectively ended with publication in 2015 of the first solid numbers showing plastic waste washing into the ocean at an average rate of 8.5 million tons a year. The years that followed produced a glut of anti-plastic campaigns, bans of shopping bags and other products, pledges by retailers to use more recycled plastic in new packaging, industry investment in recycling facilities, and cleanups of existing waste. A count of scientific studies assembled by Richard Thompson, the British marine scientist who coined the term microplastics, reveals how rapidly plastic came to be considered an environmental crisis. In 2011, the year of Leonard’s meeting, 103 scientific studies containing the words “plastic” and “pollution” were published. The count in 2019, using the same code words, was 879 studies. “Thank goodness we’re over the hump,” says Chelsea Rochman, a marine scientist at the University of Toronto who is leading a working group of scientists trying to sort out which of the various solutions are most effective. The consulting firm Systemiq, with offices in London, Munich, and Indonesia, is also making a similar assessment. The results of both projects may further shape the debate on how to proceed. In the meantime, it helps to consider where things stand today: Of the 9.2 billion tons of plastic ever manufactured, 6.9 billion tons have become waste. Most of that—6.3 billion tons, or to put it another way, a whopping 91 percent—has never been recycled. The number seemed so shocking that the UK’s Royal Statistical Society named it the international statistic of the year in 2018. That’s the same year that China stopped buying the world’s waste, and recycling has only become more troubled since. Beyond recycling, 12 percent of plastic waste is incinerated, mostly in Europe and Asia. About 79 percent goes to a landfill or leaks into the natural environment. As a measure of how quickly plastic production accelerated in recent decades, half of all plastics ever made has been produced since 2013. Production is projected to double in the next 20 years, according to a 2016 report by the World Economic Forum. Finally, plastic is exceedingly cheap to make. And its low cost is one of the main impediments to developing an economically viable, global system for recycling or otherwise disposing of plastic waste. “Recycled and reclaimed plastic has little value. Virgin plastic is cheaper to make,” Leonard says. “Why would you do anything else other than make more new plastic? It’s not a good business decision to do anything else.”

Back to the future

Aside from the economics, most of the solutions that might reduce plastic waste are hobbled by a passel of problems: still-to-be-solved technical challenges, misinformation, a lack of uniform standards that leaves consumers confused. Biodegradables often don’t actually biodegrade, especially in the oceans, where they’re much more likely to fracture into microplastics. Most compostables need very high heat to break down, requiring processing in special, industrial composters. Compostable material will not biodegrade, for example, in landfill. The two terms are often used interchangeably by consumers, but are not the same. Material labeled biodegradable can contaminate compostable material if added to the mix. Mechanical recycling, which involves grinding plastic waste into small bits that are melted and remade into new plastics, is also easily contaminated by incompatible types of plastic, dirt, and food residue. Plastics reprocessed by this method can only be remade so many times before losing strength and other characteristics. Chemical recycling, which returns plastics to their requisite molecules, alleviates much of both problems. Industry analysts regard it as the option showing the most promise, and the numbers of companies involved in developing chemical recycling is growing. But it’s still a big bet. It’s expensive and questions remain as to whether it can be scaled up enough to make a difference. In any event, both forms of recycling, as well as composting, are dependent on what remains the most dysfunctional component of dealing with plastic waste: Someone has to collect it all and sort it. Loop first launched last May in and around New York and Paris. It plans to expand to the UK, Toronto, and Tokyo later this year, and to Germany and Australia in 2021. The product line, Szaky says, grows by one or two a week and a new retailer joins, on average, once a month. Because consumer behavior is very hard to change, Szaky thinks the refillables business must come as close as it can to mimicking the ordinary shopping experience. He has partnered with Walgreens and Kroeger to set up aisles of refillables, similar to bulk food aisles, making refillables even more convenient to use. As technicalities of handling plastic waste are eventually resolved, it is the consumers who may become the toughest challenge of all. Plastic as a material is not the villain, but the way it’s used, he says, and the idea of single-use plastic is a concept that is now 70 years old. He poses a rhetorical question: “What do we as shoppers care about? Convenience, affordability, and performance. Not one of those three things has anything to do with sustainability.” He argues that consumers are the most important actors in sorting out the plastics mess, with the ability to effect corporate change with their wallets. “We vote blindly, day after day after day, with money, telling companies what we want, and we need to take that seriously,” he says. “We should buy less and make sure the things we buy are circular.”

A year ago, a coalition of some of the world’s biggest brands embarked on an experiment: If they started selling everyday products like shampoo in reusable, returnable packaging instead of single-use plastic, would customers buy it? Could a modern version of the milkman model—where customers shop online, and then return empty containers via UPS to be cleaned and refilled for a new customer—make business sense? For brands, the new platform, called Loop, was a radical step to test fundamental changes to how they package and deliver products, driven by consumer pressure to deal with the problem of plastic pollution. The first pilots started in May 2019. The tests have been successful enough that the system is now rapidly expanding and will soon launch in retail stores. [Photo: courtesy Loop] “Companies are looking for new ways to address packaging and reduce waste, and consumers are demanding it,” says Steve Yeh, a project manager at Häagen-Dazs, the Nestlé-owned ice cream brand. The brand committed major resources to developing new packaging for the pilot: a novel stainless steel ice cream canister that’s designed to keep ice cream cold longer. It then can be sent back, sterilized in a state-of-the-art cleaning system, and reused. (It also looks a lot nicer on your counter.) The system is designed to be simple for consumers—in theory, nearly as easy as buying something in a disposable package and throwing that package in the trash. Online orders are delivered in a reusable tote, and when a customer has an empty container, it goes back in the tote, the customer schedules a pickup, the packages are returned for reuse, and the customer gets back a deposit that they paid for the package (or, if they’ve reordered the product, the deposit stays in an account and they don’t pay it again). Despite using heavier packages, more transportation, and cleaning, it has a lower carbon footprint than single-use packaging. And it keeps packages out of landfills and the ocean. “We all know that recycling alone will not be enough,” says Sara Wingstrand, who leads the innovation team at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an organization focused on the circular economy. “This is a whole new way to actually think about how you can bring products to people.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] In Nestlé’s case, an internal team went through 15 iterations to reach the final design of the ice cream container, which has benefits beyond reducing waste. The package has a double metal lining, so it’s comfortable to hold, but keeps the ice cream inside from melting; it’s also designed to melt a little more quickly at the top, so it’s easier to scoop than it otherwise would be. Rounded edges mean that ice cream doesn’t get stuck in the bottom corners. And it looks better than a disposable package. The aesthetics, surprisingly, have been a bigger driver in the pilot’s success than the environmental benefits. “People actually are attracted to Loop first for design, second for reuse,” says Tom Szaky, CEO of Terracycle, the recycling company that first helped create the coalition of brands to test the platform, who is now also CEO of Loop. “The design is so important to consumers—more than I ever thought it would be.” It’s proof, he says, of what’s possible when the economics of packaging change. “If you go back 100 years and look at what your cookies came in or what your beer came in, it was a significantly greater investment in the package. As we make packaging lighter and cheaper, it becomes less recyclable, essentially growing the garbage crisis. And as we spend less money, [packages] clearly become less exciting and less desirable. The response to Loop is a simple one: Let’s shift ownership of the package in the end back to the manufacturer. And as such, they treat it as an asset and they can start investing in the pack again.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] The investment in the packages means that for the system to work, consumers have to put down a deposit for each container. In the pilot, Loop says that customers haven’t been sensitive to the price. “It’s not money out of your pocket,” says Donna Liu, a customer in New Jersey who has been using the system for several months. After the initial deposit, customers don’t have to pay again as they continue reordering the same products, and they can ultimately get the money back. But the deposits are steep, and would likely deter lower-income customers. In one review, a Huffington Post writer noted that she paid $32 in deposits for only six items (in addition to $20 in shipping, and the cost of the products themselves). Loop says it plans to have the costs come down as the system scales up. “Today, in small scale, it makes no economic sense because everything is inefficient in small scale,” says Szaky. “But a lot of our retail partners and our brand partners have modeled this in large scale. And it’s come out very exciting—it’s going to be able to be executed at scale and not cost the consumer more.” Wingstrand, who is not involved with Loop, notes that some other reusable models are already economically viable at scale, such as reusable water jugs delivered to offices. The e-commerce pilot has faced some challenges. Some customers complained about the small selection of products. Those who live in small apartments don’t like the bulky size of the reusable tote, which has enough padding inside to accommodate 16 wine bottles; one reviewer said that she was forced to use it as an ottoman until she was ready to send packages back. But moving to retail stores could help alleviate these issues. [Photo: courtesy Loop] Today, the online store has more than 150 products, including Tide detergent and Pantene shampoo in stainless steel containers, Nature’s Path granola in glass jars, and products from smaller brands like Reinberger Nut Butter. But that’s a tiny fraction of the hundreds of products online at, say, Walgreens, and one of the biggest questions from customers in the pilot has been when more products will be available. Szaky says that Loop is adding a new brand roughly every two days—but there’s a long development process for new packaging after a company joins. “This is not an overnight thing,” he says. “It takes maybe a year to get a product up and running.” In retail stores, though, customers can pick and choose which Loop products to use. “By the retailer listing in-store, the benefit to the consumer is they can go shop the Loop section, which will grow every day and get bigger and bigger, but whatever they don’t find in the Loop section they can still buy traditionally,” says Szaky. Customers can also avoid the hassle of shipping empty containers back and the size of the reusable tote; for retail returns, customers will toss containers in a reusable garbage bag and then bring them back to the store. It’s still designed to be simpler than traditional refill systems in stores—rather than cleaning and refilling your own container, you bring back dirty containers, drop them off, and buy already-packaged products on the shelf. As with online orders, you’ll pay a deposit on the container and then get it back when the container is returned. [Photo: courtesy Loop] The online pilot launched last May in and around Paris, New York City, and a few nearby areas; the startup has since added Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, and Rhode Island. It will soon expand to California as well as the U.K., Canada, Germany, and Japan, and will launch in Australia next year. Retail sales will begin later this year with Walgreens and Kroger in the U.S., Carrefour in France, Tesco in the U.K., and Loblaws in Canada. Loop won’t share specific numbers, but says that it’s seeing high numbers of repeat orders from its initial customers. The size of the pilot was limited, but more than 100,000 people applied. The startup envisions the model growing like organic food. “Every store started having a small section dedicated to organic products, but not all products had an organic alternative,” Szaky says. “That’s how it began, then it got bigger and bigger. And some stores like Costco have moved everything over to organic.” He notes that organic food still represents only about 5% of the market, and that has taken decades, but it’s a reasonable comparison. [Photo: courtesy Loop] The number of options will continue to grow. In a recent report, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that converting just 20% of plastic packaging to reusable models is now a $10 billion business opportunity. But Szazky sees it not as an opportunity, but an imperative. As he told Harvard Business Review in a recent interview: “I think that we’re going to see some organizations die because of this. Others will pivot. . . . Some organizations, like Nestlé, Unilever, and P&G, are taking these issues seriously and making the difficult decisions that may negatively impact the short term but lay the foundation to be relevant in the long term. Inversely, organizations—like many big food companies in the U.S.—are blind to what’s coming and will likely be overtaken by startups that are building their business models around the new reality that is emerging.” [Photo: courtesy Loop] For the brands that are pivoting, Loop is helping push them to experiment with reusable packaging. Häagen-Dazs is already using the container it designed for the system in stores in New York City, where customers bring it back an average of 62% of the time. (At the ice cream shops, customers don’t pay a deposit, but buy the container outright and then get discounts on ice cream each time they bring it back.) It now plans to roll out the container in 200 of its other stores. Unilever—which has products from brands like Love Beauty and Planet on the platform and is preparing to launch more products from Seventh Generation, Hellman’s, Dove deodorant, and others this year—is also experimenting with in-store refill systems and partnering with startups like Algramo, a Chile-based company that offers a mobile refill system on electric tricycles. “I think Loop provides a really good platform to start testing reusable packaging without setting everything up yourself,” says Wingstrand. “But I do think it’s very important to go very broad and make sure that not only are you putting and testing new packaging formats on the Loop platform, but you’re also trying to understand how the user might interact with a refill system, or how you might supply things in a compact format, or how you might even completely design out the packaging.”