The Retailer Summer 2018_FA_20.07

Packaging insights: Managing data to drive change

Elizabeth Minshall Environmental Compliance Consultant Valpak

“Packaging in the UK is currently facing an unprecedented shake up, with a number of policy decisions and voluntary agreements helping to drive change.”

MEETING LEGISLATION AND SETTING TARGETS FOR PACKAGING IS CHALLENGING FOR RETAILERS. UTILISING DATA EFFECTIVELY EASES THE TRANSFORMATION. Product packaging is under scrutiny like never before, with retailers at the vanguard–spearheading change and fielding attention from the public. While legislation and debate around producer responsibility reform is making an impact, retailers are also driving improvement through voluntary targets and agreements. Transforming supply chains and long-established packaging products and systems is a daunting task. What is clear, however, is that access to reliable data will not only ease the burden, it is crucial to the task. Before changing direction, it is essential to know exactly where you are. Only once you have pinpointed your current position on the map can future direction planning begin. In packaging terms, this means that benchmarking existing systems and product make up is essential before taking steps to improve recyclability or remove problematic polymers or non-essential packaging elements from the waste stream. Retailers might aim to align packaging material choices more closely to the recycling infrastructure available in the UK or even increasing the use of recycled material. Once robust data is in place, however, the process becomes more straight forward. IT should at least provide a starting point for analysis, an awareness of the challenges ahead, and clarity on which stakeholders may be the best to collaborate and engage with to create positive changes. Packaging in the UK is currently facing an unprecedented shake up, with a number of policy decisions and voluntary agreements helping to drive change. These include: Plastic Pact Plastic Pact is a voluntary agreement coordinated by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) to address sustainability issues around plastic packaging. Many major retail and manufacturing brands have already signed up to pledges which aim to bring changes by 2025. These include: • the recycling or composting of 70% of packaging; • design changes that will result in 100% of packaging being reusable, recyclable or compostable; • actions to eliminate problematic single use packaging items; and • increasing the average recycled content in packaging to 30%.

Circular Economy Package The European Union’s Circular Economy Package was published in June and will come into effect in July. The UK has agreed to uphold the principles of the package even after the UK leaves the European Union. As well as setting new targets for recycling, the measures refer to extended producer responsibility, calling for greater financial responsibility from producers, increased transparency of producers meeting the costs of collection, sorting and treatment as well as a need for shared responsibility. The overall aim is to ‘ensure a level playing field and avoid obstacles to the smooth functioning of the internal market’, while not restricting services in terms of geographical, product and material coverage to areas where management of waste are most profitable. The UK is still to decide how it will implement extended producer responsibility, but however – and to what degree – the funding for collection and recycling is allocated, officials will need accurate data on the volume and types of packaging placed on the market. Whichever system is chosen, it will need to be both measurable and regulated firmly and fairly, as well as delivering the aims of the regulations in an effective way. Deposit return schemes The government has committed to the introduction of some form of deposit return scheme (DRS), although the exact format has not been decided. Alongside its work on potential extended producer reform options, Valpak has researched DRS systems, and is using this information to try to ensure that the implementation and design of any new system ensures that more, higher-quality materials are collected in a way which provides the greatest benefit, with the least disruption. Managed correctly, deposit returns can help to provide more infrastructure for collecting some material which is already collected. It can also capture new materials not presently well catered for (such as “on the go” recycling), and exert some influence on customer behaviour. However, it is important to design systems so that they will not confuse the consumer, and to ensure that any method can add value and co-exist with existing recycling activity. Waste collection systems Current systems vary from region to region. Some councils collect one range of materials, with their neighbours accepting others. This makes life tricky for packaging designers who attempt either to design packaging for recycling, or to label it to encourage consumers to recycle.

Data drives change Knowledge is key to this and, in order to set targets, challenge established practices, and drive genuine change, a clear insight into which materials suit a recycling system, and which do not, is essential. Luckily, much of the data is already available. It may require reformatting and putting into a format which is intuitive in nature, comprehensive, accurate and easily accessible. Often, data can lie in numerous databases, speak different languages or not be joined up in the way which makes queries easy to carry out. Some have pre-empted the challenge and have created systems which could help. For example, Valpak holds 18,600,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) on its database, which it has gathered over the last 15 years using producer responsibility data. Working together, and with the right software in place, retailers can explore supply chains with a view to benchmarking suppliers on metrics such as recycled content in packaging, or identifying characteristics such as material type or colour. Under the current optical sorting systems used in recycling facilities, for example, coloured – largely black – plastic is extremely difficult to sort reliably alongside other polymers. To address this issue, retailers need to identify the products which use coloured packaging. Armed with this knowledge, they can explore customer attitudes to alternatives, check whether the colouring is essential or cosmetic, and then begin to make changes. Aside from making changes to meet internal goals, effective data manipulation also helps to ensure that partners are compliant with legislation. It can even be used to check whether suppliers meet stipulations such as the Modern Day Slavery Act, or support other CSR reporting needs. Collecting and managing data to good effect is daunting. It is time consuming and costly, but combining forces so that the knowledge of retailers, packaging producers and compliance schemes targets the same goals will make the prospect more achievable and help to generate viable, effective results.

ELIZABETH MINSHALL // Liz.Minshall@Valpak.co.uk // valpak.co.uk

46 | SUMMER 2018 |

retailer

retailer | Summer 2018 | 47

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