Pressure to meet sustainability targets is soaring, and for retailers, making meaningful progress can feel like a pricey pursuit. It doesn’t always have to be. There are plenty of opportunities to make relatively small changes to the products and packaging already being used every day.
Many sustainability targets were originally set with 2028 and 2030 in mind, which at the time felt comfortably long term. Today, those milestones are only a few years away and firmly within business planning cycles. As a result, sustainability teams are increasingly looking across their organisations for practical examples of progress and working more closely with procurement teams to identify opportunities that can support wider environmental goals.
Organisations are also adapting to a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape. Requirements such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and, for some sectors, the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), are increasing scrutiny of the materials businesses use and the data that sits behind them.
More of our clients are, quite rightly, asking questions about sustainable materials than ever before. Five years ago, sustainability conversations were often focused on carbon reporting, recycling rates or ESG strategies. Those discussions remain important, but many organisations are now looking for practical interventions that can help them achieve real-world reductions in carbon emissions, resource consumption and waste generation.
Nowadays, we’re increasingly being asked much more practical questions: Do we really need this plastic component? Is there a fibre-based alternative? What happens to this material when the campaign finishes?
The challenge we’re coming across is to design products and packaging that do not create unnecessary waste in the first place. In retail, packaging and point-of-sale is where we believe some of the biggest opportunities lie.
We recently worked with a retail client to review a large suite of in-store POS materials. The objective was to simplify materials, reduce waste and make disposal easier for stores. By reviewing specifications alongside material suppliers, we identified opportunities to replace several plastic-based components with fibre alternatives while maintaining the same visual impact and durability.
Across thousands of units, relatively small specification changes can remove significant volumes of material from a supply chain. Within our own operations, one simple switch to a reusable packing solution has reduced our plastic packaging use by more than 11 tonnes per year.
We’re also seeing increasing focus on luxury packaging, where sustainability and premium presentation are sometimes viewed as competing priorities. Material innovation is allowing brands to achieve both. Many are exploring how to retain the premium unboxing experience while reducing material intensity, improving recyclability and increasing the use of responsibly sourced or recycled content.
The options available to brands have changed considerably in recent years. Ten years ago, many fibre-based alternatives were more expensive, harder to manufacture and less able to match the visual quality of plastic-based products. Material innovation has accelerated rapidly since, giving brands far more choice when it comes to balancing sustainability with durability, cost and customer experience.
For retailers operating across hundreds of locations, there is a real opportunity in looking closely at the products and packaging they already use every day. Questioning individual materials or components might seem fairly minor, but when the same item is being produced thousands of times, the amount of waste removed can quickly become significant.