🌱 “We don’t consume materials. We simply borrow them.” Looking Beyond on Global Recycling Day
Featuring Houdini, Reposit, neat, smol and more...
Happy Monday!
This week we cover:
Focusing in on: Return for Reuse with Reposit, the Returnable Packaging Platform
Brand Spotlight: Houdini: Escaping Shackles of Linear Consumerism
In case you missed it: Boosting Recycling Rates: 3 ways to encourage consumers, inspired by smol
> Good News Last Week
🎯 Umaro Foods announced their launch plans of their seaweed-based bacon into retail stores in 2024. The announcement comes after the company closed their Seed 2 equity funding round, raising $3.8 million.
🎯 Evrnu®, SPC in collaboration with Christopher Bevans launched their latest garment, Bevans 360 Hoodie, made from a new material, Nucycl fiber. The fully recyclable and compostable material is made from cotton textile waste and produced using 3D technology.
🎯 Neat announced the launch of the world’s first refillable foaming toilet cleaner, which is entirely plant-based. The product is also both vegan and cruelty-free and packaged in refillable and recyclable bottles.
⭐️ Ricola and Grind both announced they are B Corp certified!
⭐️ Lush have introduced recycled Prevented Ocean Plastic into some of their plastic bottles through their suppliers, Spectra Packaging. The bottles are produced from plastic collected from coastal areas at risk of plastic pollution, and can be returned for recycling through Lush’s Bring it Back scheme.
> Want good news sooner? We post every Friday on LinkedIn! If your CPG brand has good news to share, let us know.
> Focusing in on
Return for Reuse with Reposit, the Returnable Packaging Platform
Almost every single product comes with something extra: packaging. This keeps products safe from contamination and helps producers easily transport goods from factories to our hands. Nearly 40% of plastic demand comes from production of plastic packaging, though, and this leads to one of the biggest environmental problems we have to date: single-use plastic packaging waste.
We have covered plastic waste quite a few times in our newsletter, like Plastic Overshoot Day or Plastic Free July options, and have shared wonderful brands that are inspiringly innovative in reducing their plastic waste footprint. They are proactively helping people recycle or inviting people to their reward recycling schemes. While that’s exciting to see, there is actually another step that we can do before having to recycle, as ranked in the waste hierarchy.
Quick one, what is the waste hierarchy?
This diagram ranks waste management options according to what is best for the environment; the top priority is preventing waste in the first place.
However, as humans who are (unfortunately!) quite consumptive and need all these means to continue our lives, it’s impossible to not create waste. Recycling is commonly seen as a way to treat the waste produced, but this unfortunately leads to another tricky problem - many materials are so processed they end up being too complicated to recycle or sometimes don’t even reach recycling facilities, ending up in landfills or the environment.
This is why we need to take a step higher up in the hierarchy, to reuse.
Introducing… Reposit!
The founder of Beauty Kitchen, Jo Chidley and her husband Stuart, were motivated to act on this issue and adopt a more circular business model. A model where materials like packaging are used again and again, versus a traditional one where packaging is discarded after one use. They started by using robust aluminium bottles and glass jars for Beauty Kitchen and are now collaboratively inviting other brands to transition to reuse with Reposit, a returnable packaging platform.
What Does ‘Returnable Packaging Platform’ Mean?
It might sound complicated, but it’s actually really simple! It can be broken down into the following elements:
Packaging
Reposit provides a range of packaging types to accommodate different brands and categories. Brands lease the packaging (e.g. aluminium bottles or glass jars) and fill it with their products. These are then sold to customers as normal through retailers or ecommerce platforms.
The Reposit packaging is uniquely tracked via QR codes. Scanning the codes will help shoppers know which products are using which packaging, and redeem rewards!
Return & Rewards Experience
Yes, rewards! When the packaging is empty, customers can return it to Reposit return points. The Reposit web app is used by customers to scan the QR code on the collection point and on their packaging to complete the return. The customer is then rewarded with vouchers to use against future purchases or even retailer gift cards.
Platform
After the empty packaging is dropped off, Reposit takes care of the rest: collecting and then professionally washing and disinfecting the bottles to be reused. The packaging can then be filled with the same or different products, which is a key aspect of the Reposit platform; reusing the same packaging for different products within the same category.
Reposit Partners
We know what you are thinking: Wow this is exciting, where can I try it?!
Marks and Spencer, a leading UK retailer, are partnering with Reposit on their Refilled scheme to place their homecare products in Reposit packaging. They hope the scheme will help reduce their packaging waste.
This platform changes the way we deal with packaging, by ensuring it is reused as much as possible to reduce single-use plastic packaging waste! Are you ready to return your packaging?
> Brand Spotlight
Houdini: Escaping Shackles of Linear Consumerism
The word business in Swedish is "livsfrämjande", meaning ‘nurturing life’. To Eva Karlsson, CEO of Swedish sportswear brand Houdini, that connection is a beautiful reminder of what businesses can do for the world.
Sustainability is woven into the very fabric of Houdini, physically and philosophically.
“We have no sustainability work. Just a lot of work.” (Houdini Planetary Boundaries Assessment).
It’s not a subsidiary function within the business but an integral part of everything they do. With no traditional marketing and double-digit year-on-year growth, Houdini is proof that sustainability can drive profitability for consumer brands.
From Mountain Mishaps to Business Breakthroughs
Founder Lotta Giornofelice, a then ski and climbing instructor and guide, began making garments for herself and her friends when she couldn’t find the right products on the market. Her base layers aimed to keep your essential muscle groups warm without becoming stifling. The brand found its name when she and her friends embodied the spirit of escape artist Harry Houdini to survive a dangerous situation on the slopes. Obviously not shy of a challenge, Lotta launched Houdini’s debut collection in 1993, persevering in an industry that was not easy to break into.
Per Lotta, “A company run by a woman was something that stood out in the outdoor business.”
Houdini still harnesses that escapist spirit as it aims to escape the linear economy and ‘transform into a circular system in harmony with our world.’
Pioneering Through Work That is Groundbreaking, Not Earth-Shattering
Houdini were the first European brand to partner with Eco-Circle, unlocking circularity potential for polyester products. This chemical recycling technology allows polyester fibres to chemically decompose and be converted into new polyester material equal in quality to the virgin fabric made from petroleum.
Houdini’s 2018 Planetary Boundaries Assessment was the first ever corporate assessment using Johan Rockström’s Planetary Boundaries Framework. The planetary boundaries quantify all nine processes that ‘regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system’, encompassing not just climate, but also often unaccounted for factors like biochemical flows and ocean acidification. Houdini had pledged to conduct a full-scale, third-party assessment every third year. The second report will be released this year following Covid-related delays.
Delving into Houdini’s recycling credentials is impossible in isolation of their holistic circular design principles:.
“We don’t consume materials. We simply borrow them.”
Houdini position themselves as custodians, not consumers, of planetary resources. This approach ensures resources are treated carefully; they aim to return all that they borrow exactly how they find it.
They design for next life, and not end of life solutions. Their ‘less is more’ design philosophy accounts for a minimalist aesthetic engineered to transcend fashion cycles. Houdini garments are built to last, with their Power Hoodie being worn an average of 1,287 times, dwarfing the western average of 160 wears.
Closing The Loop
Houdini closed the loop with their The Houdini Menu experiment. A fine dining menu was cooked using vegetables grown from the soil of decomposed base layers. “We have gotten far, but we are far from done.” - Eva Karlsson. Houdini are determined to reach 100% circularity by 2030.
Unlike Their Namesake, Houdini Is an Open Book
The team at Houdini see nature itself as their blueprint. They seek to mimic natural circularity through three key flows:
Flow of natural resources - 100% of the fabrics used in their F/W 2023 collection were recyclable, renewable, biodegradable or Bluesign certified. 85% of the collection was made from fully circular materials.
Flow of products - Houdini offers four alternative business models in the forms of reuse, rental, repair, and subscription.
Flow of knowledge - Houdini recycle expertise. The team open sources innovation, such as the Mono Air Hoodie, to empower consumer brands to rewire the linear economy’s broken circuit.
Dive into Houdini’s open-sourced learnings here:
> In case you missed it
Boosting Recycling Rates: 3 ways to encourage consumers, inspired by smol
Featuring smol, Madewell, Finisterre, Boots
Learn about how good communication and clever design can boost recycling rates.
> Follow up with…
Guide: RHS: Composting
Article: First Mile: The UK Government's upcoming 'Simpler Recycling' reforms: What do they mean?
Course: B Corp Professional Development Programme (by FTF team member Laura Matz) Use code FTF20 for 20% off
👉 Pssst - want to be featured in our ‘Meet the Partners’ series? Reach out here!