🌱 Return, Recycle, Repeat: Inside The Body Shop's partnership with ReFactory.
Featuring The Body Shop, Boots, East London Liquor Co and more...
Happy Monday!
This week we cover:
How your brand can work with ReFactory to collect and convert difficult waste into usable materials and products.
The Body Shop: 3 big steps for circular packaging.
In case you missed it: 🌱 Two Big Steps for the Beauty Industry, featuring Circla, Beauty Kitchen, Evolve Beauty and more...
> Good News Last Week
🎯 East London Liquor Co launched their ‘Project Refill’, allowing customers to use ANY existing 70CL spirits bottle, over which a branded paper based label will be applied after re-fill.
🎯 Honest Burgers announced their move to regeneratively farmed beef, becoming the first national chain to do so.
🎯 Tomorrow Farms and Perfect Day are collaborating to create an ‘animal free’ dairy milk brand, called Bored Cow. The products will be based on Perfect Day’s animal-free whey protein has up to 97% fewer carbon emissions.
⭐️ AliasSmith AB-owned Buen Vato has announced its European launch of the “world’s first” tequila in a cardboard bottle. The bottle is made from 94% recycled material, and is reportedly lighter than it’s previous glass alternative.
⭐️ Whole Foods Market announced they’ve achieved their Better Buildings Challenge energy savings goal two years ahead of schedule, having improved energy performance by 21% from a 2010 baseline across 12.3 million square feet of their building portfolio.
⚡️ Foodsteps announced a $4.1m raise. Founded in 2018, they’ve supported brands such as Wagamama, Better Nature and Gather & Gather to eco-label their products.
⚡️ My Emissions announced a £400k funding round, to help them on their carbon labelling mission. Founded in 2020, they’ve worked with brands like Clean Kitchen Club and One Planet Pizza.
⚡️ The International Maritime Organisation (a UN body) announced its made a ‘breakthrough’ on carbon price proposal for shipping. Responsible for nearly 3% of global emissions, ships emit around one billion tonnes of CO2 every year. Without further action, shipping emissions are projected to reach 90-130% of their 2008 levels by 2050.
> Click on each link to read more.
> Quick Take
How your brand can work with ReFactory to collect and convert difficult waste into usable materials and products.
ReFactory started in 2019 (originally as ‘ReWorked’) with a simple mission of recycling often ignored materials, materials that are frequently sent to landfill due to processing difficulties making them less lucrative to salvage and recycle. Many of these materials are common in consumer goods products, presenting a challenge to many brands keen to reduce their ‘end of life’ impact of their goods.
So, how can ReFactory help?
ReFactory offers a full suite of solutions - from collection, treatment and processing of many types of waste materials to then supporting their re-introduction as new products and/or passing them back to the original producers supply chain. A popular choice amongst retail, they’ve worked with Boots, Wilko, The Body Shop and more to introduce drop off points where products are sold. These are now available in over 1500 retail stores, and follow three simple steps:
Consumers are reminded to clean out and dry the container or packaging as much as possible, but the brand of product being returned doesn’t matter.
Consumers locate a store and drop off the old products in the Return, Recycle, and Repeat bins on site.
ReFactory will pick up the product and begin the recycling process.
Boot’s takes recycling a step further by rewarding customers who take part in the program. An incentive that saw quick success, as 30,000 consumers signed up in the first few months - resulting in over 1 tonne of plastic being recycled. Customers continue to receive benefits today, amounting to £2.50 in-store credit for every 5 products recycled. Read our Brand Spotlight to understand how this works for The Body Shop.
Products developed through the recycling scheme range from furniture to building materials. For example, retail units can be fitted with ‘Storm Board’ made from 100% mixed waste plastic (typically classed as “unrecyclable”) from bottle tops, cosmetic packaging, toys and more. Consumers and businesses alike can help support the mission by purchasing these products to help keep difficult waste out of landfills and the environment. In particular, brands interested in participating in the recycling scheme via their next pop-up, event activation or permanent retail unit should contact ReFactory to learn more.
> Brand Spotlight
The Body Shop: 3 big steps for circular packaging.
Encouraging more circular consumption patterns runs in The Body Shop’s DNA, truly. Anita Roddick, The Body Shop founder, initiated their first recycling scheme ‘Bring Back Our Bottles’ in 1993. Now, the industry leading B Corp is making fast progress on levelling up the circularity of their products, particularly their packaging. Guiding them is two clear goals:
All product packaging will be compostable, refillable or returnable for repurposing.
All refillable or returnable product packaging will be made from renewable and recycled input materials.
To achieve this, any new packaging is designed under four categories: design out waste, design for reuse, design for regeneration and design for repurposing. They’re already making headway. Let’s dig into three ways how:
1. The Refill Scheme
Goal: To save over 25 tonnes of plastic from going to waste each year.
How: Encouraging consumers to reduce bathroom waste before products even hit the bathroom shelf, via a refill system. Consumers pick up an aluminium bottle in store, a Body Shop team member refills it, then it’s up to the consumer to use it, rinse it and bring it back.
Progress: Having launched their product refill system at the start of 2019, they’re now rolling it to a huge 500 stores globally (159 of which will be in the UK) by the end of this year. What do consumers have to do? Find their nearest refill store, stop by, pick up an aluminium bottle, then simply refill, reuse and repeat.
Read more: here.
2. Return, Recycle, Repeat Scheme
Goal: To reduce waste within the beauty industry.
How: Consumers must make sure their empty products are as clean as possible, before they’re returned in-store to a Return, Recycle, Repeat bin. Any product packaging is welcome, from any brand! Then, The Body Shop make sure it gets recycled or repurposed and given another life via their UK partners - Scan2Recycle, MYGroup and ReFactory (we dig into how your brand can work with ReFactory in our quick take).
Progress: Launched in 2019, the scheme is available in all UK stores, and The Body Shop aim to be in 800 stores across 14 countries by the end of 2022. That’s huge!
Read more: here.
3. 100% recycled, and 100% recyclable packaging
Goal: 100% recycled and recyclable packaging.
How: Step by step, The Body Shop are moving towards fully recyclable and completely recycled packaging. A huge task, gradually eliminating oil-based plastics is part of the process, instead relying on PET plastic product packaging which contains (on average) 25% recycled material. Having launched their Community Fair Trade recycled plastic programme in 2019 in partnership with Plastics for Change, they’re being conscious of who their money supports when sourcing their recycled plastic. So far, 250 tonnes of plastic has been purchased, supporting better working conditions and steadier income for marginalised waste workers in India in the process. Long term, the goal is for all packaging to be reused or repurpose, truly closing the loop on their products.
Progress: Currently, more than 68% of The Body Shop packaging can technically be recycled. Recycled content of PET plastic product packaging is due to jump from 25% to 75% this year. For all bath, body and haircare products, this will reach 100% by 2025.
Read more: here
A poster child for progress, and also pioneering change as part of the very origins of their brand, keep one eye on The Body Shop for future packaging inspiration.
Support The Body Shop via their shop:
> In case you missed it
🌱 Two Big Steps for the Beauty Industry
Featuring Circla, Beauty Kitchen, Evolve Beauty and more...
> Follow up with…
Article: How will Coca-Cola meet its pledge to make 25% of its beverage packaging refillable or returnable?
Article: How Brands Can Help Solve the Macro Problem of Microplastics
Podcast: How New Belgium is Fighting Climate Change One Pint at a Time