Goodbye, cardboard boxes and daily deliveries. Retailers are turning to reusable packaging and consolidated drop-offs to combat climate change.

An Amazon employee scans a package at a fulfillment center in Kegworth, U.K., last October. Corrugated box shipments rose 9 percent at the onset of the pandemic as Americans stocked up on household paper, cleaning supplies and food, and have remained elevated ever since. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg) By Abha Bhattarai   The pandemic set off a surge in online shopping — and with it an avalanche of cardboard boxes and home deliveries. Now a crop of start-ups is focused on making e-commerce more sustainable by reimagining the disposable box, delivery conventions and mailing schedules. One such service, Olive, being rolled out Wednesday by Jet.com co-founder Nathan Faust, is partnering with more than 100 major retailers, including Anthropologie, Paige, Ray-Ban and UGG, to consolidate home deliveries in reusable tote bags that are dropped off once a week. Other newcomers, meanwhile, offer reusable plastic mailing boxes, compostable packaging and algae-ink shipping labels. The efforts are part of a larger shift within the retail industry to eliminate single-use cardboard and plastic as consumers increasingly weigh the environmental impacts of fast and easy shipping. Brands such as Clorox, Haagen Dazs and Seventh Generation are moving toward glass, aluminum and stainless steel packaging that can be returned, cleaned and refilled for subsequent uses, with the help of Loop, a program introduced two years ago at the World Economic Forum. Sustainability experts say much of the pollution associated with online shopping occurs during “last mile” delivery, that final stretch from warehouse to doorstep. But they say packaging is perhaps an easier — and more tangible — problem to solve. Consumers’ increased reliance on online shopping during the pandemic also put a spotlight on discarded cardboard piling up in recycling bins across the country. Corrugated box shipments rose 9 percent early in the pandemic as Americans stocked up on household paper, cleaning supplies and food, and they have remained elevated in the months since, according to industry data. “There are trade-offs to shopping online and in stores,” said Scott Matthews, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has been studying the environmental effects of retail practices since the early 2000s. “But packaging will always be a problem that needs to be addressed.” Faust got the idea for Olive while he was taking out the trash one night. “After 30 minutes of breaking down boxes and multiple trips down the driveway, it dawned on me that this is crazy,” said Faust, 41, who co-founded Jet.com and five years ago sold it to Walmart for $3.3 billion. “Twenty-five years into online shopping, and this is what status quo delivery looks like.” He came up with a blueprint for a company that would not only reduce the amount of waste being shipped to customers’ homes but also streamline deliveries so that orders from multiple retailers are dropped off in a batch, instead of piecemeal. More than 100 apparel retailers — including Anthropologie, Finish Line, Ralph Lauren and Saks Fifth Avenue — have signed on for the service, which is backed by venture capital. “The real power comes in the last mile to the consumer’s doorstep, where so much of the emissions in the post-purchase supply chain come from, largely because it’s an average of one box per stop on the delivery route,” Faust said. “That’s where we have the biggest impact.”   Shoppers buy items as they normally would, using the company’s app or a Google Chrome plugin. When it’s time to check out, Olive has the order routed to one of its two warehouses, in Southern California or northern New Jersey. From there, workers unpack individual orders, recycle packing materials and place items in a reusable bag that is delivered once a week. The service’s benefits, Faust says, are twofold: It ensures more packaging materials are recycled properly at Olive’s facilities while eliminating multiple delivery trips throughout the week. To return an item, the shopper places it back in the shipping tote for the U.S. Postal Service to pick up. Consumers can also collapse the bag and mail it back to Olive. The service is free for consumers; Olive makes money by taking a roughly 10 percent share of each retail order. Faust says consumers are willing to wait a few extra days for their orders if it means dealing with less waste, though analysts say that could be a difficult proposition given that services such as Amazon Prime have conditioned shoppers to expect just about anything to arrive within a day or two.   To that end, Faust says he is focused on apparel orders, which tend to be fragmented because consumers buy from a range of sites, all with their own delivery timetables and conventions. The segment also has the highest return rates in e-commerce, making it a particularly good fit for reusable packaging. “With apparel, there aren’t preconceived notions of when should some things how up like there is when you shop on Amazon,” he said, adding that the company plans to eventually expand into other categories, such as cosmetics, and add more advanced tracking and delivery information. “Even when you’re buying from the same retailer, one shirt might come right away. Another might take a week. Waiting an extra two or three days for us to bring everything to you — we think the majority of customers will prefer to take that delay for waste-free delivery and doorstep returns.” The more efficient online shopping becomes, the better environmental option it becomes to in-store shopping, said Matthews of Carnegie Mellon.   Delivery trucks can make more concentrated deliveries instead of boomeranging around town, he said, resulting in lower greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, a delivery truck that makes dozens of stops an hour is more efficient than individual shoppers driving to several stores for a handful of items at a time, he said. Retailers have also become more careful about packaging and box size, which has helped curtail waste. Amazon, which accounts for nearly 40 percent of the country’s online sales, said it has reduced packaging by 33 percent since 2015, eliminating more than 900,000 tons of packaging material, equivalent to 1.6 billion shipping boxes. (Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.) “Twenty years ago, if you ordered a book, it’d arrive in a big box with [Styrofoam] peanuts or bubble wrap,” Matthews said. “Nowadays it comes in very streamlined packaging, maybe even in a padded envelope, which means you don’t fill up trucks as fast.” When the pandemic hit last year, high-end shoe company Charix moved all of its business online. Sales boomed sixfold — but so did returns and exchanges. “We quickly realized e-commerce is very different from traditional retail,” said Suley Ozbey, who founded the D.C.-based company in 2015. “We’d get shoes back in boxes that we couldn’t use again, and it was piling up,” he said. “Our neighbors were complaining that we were taking up all of the dumpsters and we felt like, oh no, we’re throwing many good boxes.” He began looking for alternatives and found Boox, which offers brightly colored reusable plastic mailing boxes with a velcro-like fastener and don’t require packing tape. Ozbey pays about $2 per Boox, versus about 75 cents for a cardboard box, but said the investment has been worthwhile. Each plastic container can be used up to a dozen times before it’s recycled.   “There’s no clutter, there’s no trash,” he said. Boox, started six months ago by restauranteur-turned-entrepreneur Matthew Semmelhack, sells its reusable plastic mailing boxes to more than 30 specialty retailers, including Ren Skincare, Boyish Jeans and Curio Spice Co. It is nearing 50,000 shipments a month, with half of those boxes being returned by consumers. “The folding cardboard box was invented 120 years ago and hasn’t changed much since then,” said Semmelhack, 38, who lives in Petaluma, Calif. “But the way we receive packages and products has changed wildly over the last 10 or 20 years. And now with the pandemic, the number of products coming to our door has skyrocketed.” Each box can be reused about a dozen times, he said. Once returned, they’re quarantined for a week then cleaned using organic soap and water before being redeployed for more deliveries. Once the box is done for good, Semmelhack said the company works with a manufacturer that can break down the corrugated polypropylene into plastic flakes and be turned into more boxes more efficiently than cardboard recycling. Customers can return or exchange their products in the same box, or they can flatten it into an envelope and return it by mail to Boox for reuse. “The grand vision is to never throw a box away and never make a new one,” Semmelhack said. “But first we need to show that behavioral change is possible.”

Tom Szaky, the chief executive and founder of TerraCycle, imagines a world where shoppers take their trash with them to the grocery store. In his vision, people purchase products like ice cream and deodorant in reusable containers. At the cashier, they pay an additional cost: a refundable packaging deposit. They return empty containers to the store, which collects them for cleaning and reuse. The consumer gets each deposit back and buys another tub of ice cream or stick of deodorant from the shelf. The cycle starts again. Soon Mr. Szaky is going to find out if his idea can work in the real world. Retailers including Kroger Co. next year plan to make space in stores for Loop, TerraCycle’s refillable packaging platform. Tesco PLC in the U.K. and Carrefour SA in France also are planning to install in-store Loop “corners”—areas of a store designed for products packaged in Loop’s containers—in the next 12 months. Loblaws Inc. in Canada and Woolworths Group Ltd. in Australia will bring Loop stations to stores sometime in 2022, a Loop representative said. Aeon Co., Japan’s largest supermarket group, plans to introduce Loop corners to 16 stores in the greater Tokyo area next March. “We want people to come in and fall in love with these really cute, beautiful packages, understand the message and get excited about it,” said Satoshi Morikiyo, general manager of  convenience goods at Aeon. “Shopping trips are not necessarily something people look forward to, but this is a cool experience that offers something of a discovery—something new and fun.”

Loop products in returnable packaging are scheduled for launch nationwide this month, while retail partners in the U.S., France, and Japan plan to offer Loop in their stores later this year. For those consumers going the e-commerce route, there is a $20 shipping fee for orders under $150. In addition, the tote used to deliver and return product comes with a $15 deposit fee. As of presstime, consumers across the U.S. who are interested in shopping online for a range of grocery, household, and personal care products in gorgeously designed, durable, and resusable packaging will have the chance in June, when Loop launches nationwide. Since May 2019, the ground-breaking Loop circular shopping platform has been available in 10 states in the Northeast and in Paris. According to Tom Szaky, founder of recycling company TerraCycle and of Loop, the 10-month pilot allowed participating Consumer Packaged Goods companies, retailers, and Loop itself to gain insights and tweak the program for wider availability. Just as exciting, if not more so, according to Szaky, is the news that Loop will be launching in retail stores, including Kroger in the U.S., Carrefour in France, and AEON in Japan, later this year. Currently 400 brands have joined Loop, 20% of which are now available for purchase on Loopstore.com and 80% of which are still in development. Says Szaky, it can take a CPG anywhere from six to 18 months from the time they join Loop until they have product ready to ship. Among some of the more well-known CPGs that have signed on are Seventh Generation, Clorox, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, Unilever, and Mars Petcare. Loop also sells a “private-label” brand, Puretto, which Szaky says is being used by name-brand companies to test products on the platform while they develop their own, unique version. “As soon as that version is live, we disable the Puretto version,” he explains. Szaky notes that the rapid speed of the nationwide launch—Loop was only just unveiled in February 2019—is due to the fact that “it’s a platform and not a producer or retailer.” He continues, “By being a platform, it is really our fantastic brand partners that are doing all the production and ramping up, and the retailers that are doing the scale up and later the in-store deployments. What we really have to ramp up is the ability to accept that used packaging, sort it out, and clean it. And that’s an area that TerraCycle has almost two decades of experience doing in disposables. Now we just have to bring the same experience to reusables.” With the e-commerce model, all packaging—both filled and empty—is handled through Loop’s Northeast location, from which it sends orders to consumers and where it cleans the empty packaging. Loop will also soon be adding another location on the West Coast. “As the stores move into bigger and bigger volumes, we will deploy in total seven major facilities in the U.S.,” Szaky says. “I expect that to take about two to three years.” Outside the U.S., Loop has one facility in each country in which it operates and is planning to add more. When the in-store platform becomes available, CPGs will supply the stores with product directly. Then, when consumers are through with the product, they will drop off the empty packaging at the store, and Loop will pick it up for cleaning. For those consumers going the e-commerce route, there is a $20 shipping fee for orders under $150. In addition, the tote used to deliver and return product comes with a $15 deposit fee. Deposits are also required for every package and range anywhere from $1.25 for a glass liquid soap dispenser bottle from Soapply, for example, up to $10 for a rust-resistant metal container with one-touch dispensing lid for Clorox disinfecting wipes. One of the biggest learnings from the Loop pilot says Szaky is that the deposit costs have not deterred consumers from using Loop. “I thought they would be, but they haven’t in any capacity,” he says. “Even deposits as high as $10 have not been a deterrent. So we’re very, very happy about that.” Not only that, Szaky says, but they also found that within 90 days of purchase, there was a 97% return rate for the packaging by consumers. “I was surprised, but I think it has to do with the fact that people want the product inside, and they’re happy to have us professionally clean it and have it professionally refilled so they can access it again.” For the in-store business, the only deposits are for the containers, which consumers are refunded when they return the empty packaging to the store.  

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.”

The home cleaning market has been saddled with lackluster growth for years. New players, with new ideas, hope to shake up this $3.4 billion category. The only thing worse than cleaning the home is purchasing cleaning products, a process that wastes time and resources, according to detractors. No wonder that the newest ideas in home cleaning have less to do with cleaning spills than cleaning up the buying process. While few people admit to enjoy cleaning their homes, there’s no denying that the home cleaning category, when taken together, is a giant business. According to IRI, household cleaner sales in grocery, drug, mass market, military and select club and dollar retailers, rose 1.2% to more than $3.46 billion for the 52 weeks ended Sept. 8, 2019. Of course, some segments performed better than others. For example, all-purpose cleaner/disinfectant sales rose 4.7% to nearly $1.3 billion, but national brand managers should temper their enthusiasm, considering that private label sales surged more than 35% during the period. Oven and appliance cleaners and degreasers also outpaced overall industry growth, rising 8.3% to more than $203 million. The category has been a boon for Procter & Gamble, as its sales jumped more than 58% during the period, according to IRI. Meanwhile, sales were flat in multimillion-dollar categories like toilet bowl cleaners/deodorizers. But with sales limping along with a growth rate lower than the population growth, some entrepreneurs insist that the category is ripe for dramatic change through simplification. According to the founders of Truman’s, a new line of cleaning products, the cleaning process has become extremely complicated with a variety of formulas, SKUs, colors and scents. Their answer is four spray cleaners that work effectively on a variety of surfaces. There’s Everything And The Kitchen Sink kitchen cleaner, Floors Truly floor cleaner, More Shower To You bathroom cleaner and The Glass is Always Cleaner glass cleaner. What’s more, all four formulas come in concentrated cartridges. Consumers fill and refill spray bottles using water and cleaner formulas that are about the size of a Lifesavers package. It all adds up to a big savings in packaging and shipping costs—issues that have moved front and center with consumers. For Truman’s co-founders, reinventing an existing business model is nothing new. Jon Bostock and Alex Reed co-founded Truman’s after shaking up the staid industrial fan business. Bostock is the former president and COO of Big Ass Fans (BAF), which designs and sells large fans and lighting systems for industrial, commercial and farm use. Reed was BAF’s global marketing director. BAF was sold at the end of 2017, but Bostock and Reed wanted to do something entrepreneurial together. “We believe in the direct-to-consumer model and innovative products, and we felt that cleaning had been left behind,” Reed told Happi. “The supply chain is broken; products are primarily water, so companies are basically shipping and warehousing a small amount of active.” Problems continued once palettes are unloaded and products are placed on retail store shelves, according to Reed. “With so many unnecessary cleaners and fragrances, it is all very confusing,” he insisted. “No brand was born in the digital age of listening to the consumer. The category needed to be reimagined throughout the value chain.” Truman’s is a startup, but in its short existence company executives realized that consumers have an appetite for easy-to-use products that are “non-toxic.” People like to engage with us via social media and our website (www.Trumans.com),” insists Reed. “Household cleaning is a sleepy category and it doesn’t have to be.” In fact, Truman’s woke up Henkel to the possibility of a fun, DTC model. Two months ago, the multinational took a stake in the Louisville, KY-based startup. With the minority investment in Truman’s, Henkel is taking over the role as lead investor in a seed round totaling $5 million. “Convenience and sustainability today are top-of-mind for an increasing number of today’s consumers and we continuously advance our portfolio while addressing these topics. Specifically, when it comes to packaging, Henkel pursues ambitious targets for sustainable packaging to promote a circular economy and reduce plastic waste,” said Robert Günther, corporate director, Henkel Ventures, in statement. “We look forward to gaining insights from the Truman’s team, as well as supporting them with our expertise and resources.” The feeling is definitely mutual, said Reed, who noted that Henkel has broad manufacturing capabilities and international distribution. “We wanted to do more than take a paycheck,” he recalled. “Henkel has expertise in international trade and compliance, and has new technology, too. Now we have access to it.” Will Henkel ultimately offer the founders a buyout? Not necessarily. “Henkel’s venture arm made the investment and they want to see the value of the investment increase; this isn’t an acquisition nor is it a path to acquisition,” explained Reed. “We aren’t seeking new funds at this time, but it shows that the multinationals are interested (in a new model).” New from P&G Multinationals want new, whether its home grown or brought inside. Procter & Gamble expanded the Mr. Clean franchise earlier this year with two new formulas. Clean Freak is said to have three times the cleaning power of conventional all-purpose cleaners, and acts on contact to remove 100% of dirt, grease and grime leaving nothing behind but a perfect shine, according to Mary Johnson, a spokesperson for Procter & Gamble. The brand also launched Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Sheets that have Magic Eraser’s cleaning power but are thin and flexible. “Recently, we’ve focused on designing more plant-based products, to meet consumer needs and help increase our use of renewable materials,” explained Johnson. “We’ve introduced a plant-based portfolio in Fabric Care, with Tide purclean, Downy Nature Blends, Dreft purtouch and Gain Botanicals, and we’ve launched Home Made Simple, a plant-based home care & cleaning line designed to meet EPA Safer Choice and USDA Standards.” The Home Made Simple line includes detergent, fabric softener, multipurpose cleaner, hand soap and dish soap. According to P&G research, about 8% of consumers are committed to a lifestyle that includes natural products, but up to 76% of consumers are interested in trying such products. About 24% of consumers aren’t interested in naturals. Cleaner products that help consumers clean their homes has other benefits, too. “Consumers across the country are increasingly tapping into the mental clarity and peace of mind that comes from not only a clean home, but from the act of cleaning itself,” observed Johnson. “Most consumers are aware of the physical benefits of a good clean, but more and more consumers are turning to cleaning as a way to clear their minds, take a pause from the hectic pace of daily life and use that as a moment of ‘me time.’” Johnson pointed to the new phenomenon of “clean with me” videos has caught fire on YouTube. These videos, which literally take the viewer around a stranger’s home as they clean it, have been viewed more than 200 million times, with more than 5,000 new video uploads in the past few months alone. She told Happi that for P&G brands, sustainability comes to life in everyday moments, like washing laundry and doing dishes. “For example, as more and more people strive to adopt resource-efficient habits, it becomes increasingly important to use products designed to perform in the toughest conditions. If you’re washing clothes in shorter, colder cycles, you need a detergent like Tide, that’s been designed with a specific enzyme to clean in the quickest, coldest wash. If you want to use less water to get clean dishes, you need a product that doesn’t require a pre-rinse, like Cascade, which lets you skip the rinse and save up to 15 gallons of water per load. If you’re using a lower performing product and something doesn’t get clean, chances are you’ll compensate for that by washing it again—this time with more water or more product, driving your footprint up. So that’s why we design products like Tide and Cascade specifically to help save water, time and energy, without sacrificing the clean you need.” At the same time, P&G is aware that the way its products are made matters too. So, the company makes its brands at facilities that use 100% renewable wind power electricity and send zero manufacturing waste to landfill. “We’ve helped the industry tackle important challenges like the creation of a recycling stream for colored PET, and we’re working to find alternatives to plastics, like Cascade cartons made from 100% recycled wood pulp,” said Johnson. Finally, P&G is being transparent about what’s in its products and why. Johnson noted that P&G was one of the first firms to participate in the online SmartLabel system, where you can find information about all of P&G’s fabric and home care products listed. “Today, we working to incorporate more of this information onto our packaging to further our transparency efforts and enable you to make informed choices,” she said. SC Johnson has been the leader in ingredient transparency for years. In September, SC Johnson released its 2018/19 Sustainability Report. During the past year, the company has removed 1.7 million kilograms of plastic from primary packaging. Furthermore, 94% of the company’s plastic packaging is now recyclable, reusable or compostable. Recently, SC Johnson let its membership in the Plastics Industry Association expire. In a statement, SCJ said it strongly believes governments should be able to democratically ban plastics if that’s what its citizens want. “Leaving the Plastics Industry Association was a difficult situation because we respect the work they’re doing on recycling and plastic innovation,” a company spokesperson told Happi. “However, its connection to the American Progressive Bag Alliance became confusing. SC Johnson is committed to packaging innovation and post-consumer recycled content and you’ll see more from us in the future.” Are You in the Loop? Whether startup or multinational, nearly every FMCG company is determined to reduce its packaging footprint. Last year, more than 250 companies, including PepsiCo and H&M, pledged to cut back on their use of plastic, including making all of their packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. Packaging is the hot-button issue of the moment and TerraCycle, the creator of Loop, is pushing all the right buttons. Launched in May, Loop is billed as a global circular shopping platform that’s designed to eliminate the idea of waste by transforming the products and packaging of everyday items from single-use to durable, multi-use, feature-packed designs, according to TerraCycle, which developed Loop more than a year ago, introduced the concept at Davos and has expanded from three US states to 11 in six months. Loop is also available in Paris and, most recently, London. “The growth and acceptance has been wonderful,” said Anthony Rossi, VP-global business development, Loop. “We are adding nearly a brand a day.” At press time, Loop offered 150 products and Rossi expected that number to climb to 350 by year-end. So, who’s in the Loop? Well-known companies such as Clorox, P&G, Seventh Generation and Unilever offer an array of cleaners, detergents and personal care products in reusable, returnable, often stainless-steel packaging. Loop delivers products to its members’ doors and picks up the packaging when it’s depleted. Products are reordered online and after seven or eight uses, The Loop process turns positive for the environment, according to TerraCycle. For now, consumers can order products at Loopstore.com, and Kroger and Walgreens are the official retail partners. Loop is just getting started, but there have already been a lot of lessons learned, according to Rossi. “Faster moving products, such as snacks and beverage, create a lot of engagement with consumers,” he told Happi. “On the home care side, autodish pods and all-purpose cleaners have been performing very well.” Getting in the Loop isn’t easy. Suppliers are making heavy investment in packaging and filling lines, but as Rossi notes, “they wouldn’t do it if the reaction wasn’t positive and there wasn’t demand for our products.” Procter & Gamble was one of the first companies to join the Loop program. P&G designed packaging that is both reusable and recyclable for Febreze One, an ultra-durable package for Cascade and a stainless-steel refillable package for Tide Purclean. All three of these solutions are designed for consumer convenience and reuse, and to enable ongoing learning within the new platform, according to Johnson. “While it’s still very early in the test markets, we have seen that consumer appeal increases when the product offering broadens, so we are encouraging more brands to join Loop as we all learn together in this important space,” she said. Coming Next Month A different kind of packaging issue was front and center earlier this year. The household cleaning industry won a key battle in August when the Supreme Court of the State of New York ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Household & Commercial Product Association (HCPA) and the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) against the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) attempts to force cleaning product manufacturers to disclose chemical ingredients and identify any ingredients that appear on authoritative lists of chemicals of concern on their websites. The Court found that the NYSDEC Disclosure Program is “null and void” and remitted the matter back to NYSDEC with the directive to comply with State Administrative Procedure Act. “It was a huge decision,” recalled Steve Caldeira, president and CEO, HCPA. “Any time you litigate against a state it is a big undertaking.” According to Caldeira, the ruling underscores HCPA’s successful strategy to collaborate with other stakeholders on key issues. “The HCPA has a good reputation of being collaborative and inclusive. Engagement and collaboration is our mantra and we will continue to do so.” At the same time, however, Caldeira observed that the association is willing to go it alone when it involves critical issues. Two years ago, when California passed the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act, HCPA engaged in intense negotiations with NGOs and other stakeholders, when many other associations, were neutral on the issue. HCPA also played a leading role in the reauthorization of the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA), which was signed by President Donald J. Trump this Spring and will remain in effect through 2023. Also this year, HCPA earned the 2019 Safer Choice Partner of the Year from the US Environmental Protection Agency. “To win this award is humbling and we are very grateful. It speaks to the vision and mission of our board and the engagement of our membership,” said Caldeira. “We have a lot of big wins, because we have a talented staff, an engaged board and are focused on the right issues.” Of course, more issues are on the horizon. For example, the California legislature adjourned before acting on the Circular Economy and Pollution Reduction Act, which would require all single-use packaging sold in California on or after Jan. 1, 2030 to be recyclable or compostable. HCPA member companies are part of the Alliance To End Plastic Waste, a group made up of some the leading suppliers and marketers in the home came industry. These companies have pledged $1.5 billion over the next five years to solve some of the issues surrounding plastic. “Plastic is an issue that consumers care about and one that we must address,” said Caldeira. “Whatever we can do as companies and trade associations to become smarter and innovate around plastic is important.” During XPand 2019, the HCPA Annual Meeting, several important issues will be in focus. The event takes place in Fort Lauderdale, FL, Dec. 8-11, 2019. The overarching theme of the Annual Meeting is innovation and, for the first time, the HCPA will honor members with its Innovation Awards, which will be granted in five categories—ingredients, sustainability, consumer communication, technology and game-changing innovation. Annual Meeting programming will center on operational excellence, consumer education and sustainability stewardship. There will be sessions on consumer habits, ecommerce, retailer updates, supply chain disruption and diversity. The keynote speaker is Nancy Giordano, a strategic futurist and corporate strategist who has guided transformation projects with The Coca Cola Company, Brinker International, Sprint, Nestle, Acumen, Energizer, Mercedes Benz and many other Fortune 500 companies. On Dec. 11, HCPA will host a Preservation Summit that will feature presentations by Beth Ann Browne of DuPont, Tony Rook and Doug Mazeffa of Sherwin Williams, Petra Kern and Jeff Van Komen of Procter & Gamble, and other key stakeholders to further the discussion about the benefits of product preservation. According to HCPA, the goal of the Summit is to help inform legislators, retailers, decision makers and NGOs about the benefits of product preservation by developing scientific and consumer-friendly data and educational content that can be used to communicate effectively with a range of target audiences. In 2020, HCPA staff will continue to collaborate with other groups to find a solution at the national level regarding ingredient communication. “We will continue to the use the California model for a national solution. Patchwork regulations can be onerous and costly,” observed Caldeira. “We need common sense solutions. We will continue to work with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, ACI and others to find a solution. There are a lot of great things going on, but we have to stay focused, collaborate with NGOs and like-minded trade groups.” The strategy is paying off, as HCPA membership and revenue continue to grow slowly and steadily. During his three years at the helm of the association, HCPA has been rebranded, developed economic data to better tell its story on Capitol Hill and at the state level, updated its strategic plan and and expanded its board and officers. “There is growing interest among companies to have a voice as we expand,” Caldeira concluded. “If you stay stagnant, you get left behind.”