Policy: The outcomes of COP30 in Belem, Brazil were a mixed bag. While the “global mutirao” decision did acknowledge that the global transition is irreversible, Petrostates led by Saudi Arabia and Russia blocked any language of ambition and even the words “fossil fuel” didn’t make it into the final statement. Other wins included more than 80 countries did back a roadmap away from fossil fuels, and Colombia and the Netherlands agreed to co-host the first international conference next year, to build on the momentum away from the COP process. South Korea, with the world’s seventh largest coal fleet, said it would stop building new plants and phase out existing ones. As always, the question of the financing to support developing coutnries to transition to renewable energy remains key.
Research: Millions of bio-beads recently washed up onto the beach at Camber Sands, East Sussex, UK, a leakage from a Southern Water plant. These bio-beads, resembling plastic pellets/'nurdles' used as plastic feedstock, are used in wastewater treatment plants to break down waste. What makes bio-beads hazardous is their shape. They have a dimpled surface to maximise their surface area-to-volume ratio. This promotes the growth of bacteria that form a biofilm on their surface and this bacteria break down nutrients in the wastewater effluent and help process sewage. However, when leaked into the environment, this means these bio-beads can spread E. coli and other pathogens dangerous to humans and wildlife, as well as breaking down into microplastics and being ingested by wildlife. There are alternatives to plastic bio-beads however, including:
- denser materials like glass, ceramic and stone less likely to leak
- using fixed plastic in large, flat surfaces instead of loose, small bio-beads
- activated sludge (a biological treatment process where wastewater is mixed with a community of microbes)
- UV processing or electrocoagulation (electric currents to remove contaminants).
Strategy: The age of greenhushing? With geopolitical winds, led by Trump, turning against environmental action, it seems like companies are reneging on their climate and nature pledges. However the picture is more complex. The "greenhushing" trend describes companies deliberately downplaying climate pledges. For example, talking about general risk management instead of climate risk strategies, adaptation or mitigation. Or continuing to assess their assets and portofolios for climate and nature risks but not communicating it externally. At the same time, many companies appear to be expanding rather than contracting their green pledges. Researchers at Harvard recently examined 75 top global firms before and after last year’s US election. Just 13 percent scaled back their sustainability efforts or their public messages on green issues, while 32 percent actually accelerated their efforts. So what do you think, is greenhushing the predominant trend right now?
Action This 💡
To truly progress circularity, step 1 is understanding the material flows across your entire value chain. Whether you're focusing on plastics, textiles or a mix of material resources, map where these materials are used, upstream, within your operations, downstream, through to end-of-life management. This comprehensive view will help you identify hotspots, risks and opportunities to make your business more circular.
Can Reuse Compete with Convenience?
With CEO, John Marchant and Trustee, Roger Sharp of REUSE Foundation
How did you come up with the idea of starting the Reuse Foundation?
It was born out of frustration!
About ten years ago at a competitive intelligence company we ran, we were asked to track Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) competitor moves on plastic packaging. That company still prepares a monthly newsletter that goes out to loads of professionals. It’s a great resource but through it we got to see all the greenwashing that goes on and how recycling was broken.
It was clear reuse was the best option, but overlooked, so about five years ago we set up a refill company in the UK. We won grants to test ideas and support research and innovation in the UK and overseas and tested various reuse solutions, some of which proved viable. But through this work we realised other things that needed to change.
Consumers want products from established brands which they trust, but we couldn’t get them on board.
People are focused on the wrong thing. Global NGOs tend to focus support on recycling and recyclability, which is largely useless and is not and should not be the first step in line with the waste hierarchy. This gives cover to CPG companies to keep using linear supply chains along with the waste it creates.
We felt an organisation focused on the best solution for plastic packaging - REUSE - would be useful and we didn’t see one, so thought we’d set one up!
You ran a groundbreaking Beat The Sachet pilot in India. What were the biggest achievements and learnings from that? What are the next steps for this campaign?
The biggest achievement was creating a reuse system with the local people that they liked and wanted to use. We worked with a local NGO and community groups to do that, and the solution was very successful. We surveyed 118 of the consumers in the pilot and 100% of them preferred our reusable bottle over sachets, and 100% wanted more products as refills.
Next step is to scale the solution and show it’s financially viable. We set up a nonprofit in India to run things and have the support of village councils, the CEO of the district council, MPs here and in politicians in India. We’re currently raising funds through REUSE Foundation’s Sponsor a Village campaign. We’re targeting 30 villages and aim to prevent over a million items of single use plastic packaging across 5 product categories. If it works, we think it’ll be the first time reuse at scale has been demonstrated with low-income groups. This week our two (female) drivers started lessons! It’ll launch Q1 next year.
What are the biggest challenges you've experienced in scaling reuse? What needs to happen to scale reuse?
Three big problems we see are:
- Misperception about plastic recycling. We’ve been told it works, but it clearly doesn’t. NGOs that push recycling and recyclability are part of the problem in our book; they’re just enabling bad practices. Companies make some of their packaging more ‘recyclable’ and these NGOs give them the thumbs up, but it’s worthless. Companies know it but they’re not doing anything illegal.
- Lack of funding. Reuse gets a fraction of the effort and funding that goes into plastic recycling, even though reuse is a better solution.
- Absence of policy support. There are no requirements to adopt reuse. If brands started, it’d quickly make a big difference, but it needs policy change to force them. Many brands want minimum reuse levels that create a level playing field, but policy makers don’t seem to be moving this way.
What other initiatives is the Reuse Foundation working on? How do they work together to transition to a reuse, circular future?
We have three active campaigns:
- Sponsor a Village, which aims to demonstrate reuse can work at scale in the lowest income communities in India.
- Bottles for Good, which seeks to seed reuse habits in the UK by working with refill stores around the country to make available discounted refillable packaging.
- Refill, Not Landfill!, a student/youth competition with a prize for the best social media posts that communicates why plastic recycling is failing, why reuse is the best option and inspires behaviour change.
We have a campaign in the works to partner with sporting teams and another focused on promoting reuse brands and solutions in the marketplace.
We’re also undertaking research. In May, we published a paper – Where Now For Plastic Packaging – and next week we’ll publish a report based on the first global survey of reuse-focused businesses that aims to better understand this key but overlooked constituency. Keep an eye out!
John Marchant runs REUSE Foundation and led the development and implementation of the Beat The Sachet project in India. John has a MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London, and a full scholarship MBA from Columbia Business School, New York. He’s a serial entrepreneur and has successfully established and ran companies in the UK, USA, Singapore, and Australia.
Roger is a REUSE Foundation trustee based in the UK. He is an economist by training and for over 30 years he has advised top CPG companies including Unilever and Colgate on numerous brand, finance and competitive matters. He brings excellent analytical skills, a detailed understanding of refill systems, and prepared and looks after all cash flow and budgeting models used in the India Beat The Sachet project.
Smart Picks 🧠
Scaling Reuse - A Guide to Standardized Measurement - Read this white paper by the World Economic Forum. Currently, packaging is often measured by the proportion of packaging by weight. However, for reusable packaging this could encourage producing more, heavier reusable packaging while not actually measuring how many times it gets reused. This technical white paper tries to tackle this issue by exploring more appropriate methods of measuring reuse such as reuse effectiveness or product volume sold through reuse.
What did you think of this edition of Circular Digest? If you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas for future content, reply to this email. 😊
See you next month!
Kayleigh
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Kayleigh Lee-Simion
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