Every year, the world produces a staggering 400 million tonnes of plastic - equivalent to the weight of an astonishing 22.2 million double decker buses. About 50% of that is for single-use purposes, and sadly on average only 9% of global plastic produced is recycled each year. These figures are mind-blowing, and as plastic is non-biodegradable, such an enormous scale of waste creates lasting impacts that affect humans, marine life and the environment.
Although this reality can seem daunting and hopeless, there are steps that your business can take to reduce its contribution to global plastic waste. Keep reading to find out more!
A great place to start on your journey to reducing plastic waste for your business is conducting a plastic audit. A plastic audit is the process of analysing and identifying the amount and type of plastic waste generated in key business areas.
For a business, the first step is to identify the amount of plastic used in your operations and highlight the areas where single use plastic is most prominent. This includes within all stages of your supply chain, your packaging, and then in your work spaces by looking at items such as utensils, straws and containers.
Once clearly outlined and defined you can consider ways to reduce the use of plastic in those key areas and set realistic targets along the way. Setting reachable targets for reduction in plastic use would help your business remain accountable and monitor your progress over time. Incremental positive changes rather than an all-at-once approach are also more likely to be achieved since you’re able to break the problem into smaller more manageable stages.
To keep yourself accountable you may even wish to publish your findings and targets with key stakeholders and customers. This way you’re not only more likely to succeed in achieving your targets but you’ll show your customers that you’re a brand taking the issue seriously, leading to greater brand affinity and trust. Given that 94% of customers say they are more likely to trust a brand that demonstrated transparency this could be a key win on your path to greater sustainability.
A recent study from Portsmouth University found that UK households throw away roughly 66 pieces of plastic packaging per week on average. Most of this plastic waste comes from food, shopping and toiletry containers where plastic packaging is widely used due to its low cost and product preservation benefits. Despite the widespread usage and benefits of plastic, it is often easily replaceable within your supply chain.
Packaging optimisation is a strategic approach that involves the calibration of packaging elements to maximise efficiency, protection, and cost-effectiveness within the supply chain. To practise package optimisation, your business should ascertain the size of a product and then ensure its packaging is ideally suited to the item, leaving as little wasted space or unnecessary materials as possible.
Additionally, your business could invest in alternative packaging materials such as paper, bio-based or recycled plastics, and natural fibres including cotton and cardboard. Using such substitutes could cut global plastic waste by 17% by 2040, demonstrating how your business could significantly contribute to minimising plastic waste. Also, using alternatives like cardboard provides consumers with an opportunity to reuse the packaging in their own daily lives (e.g. for storage). Moreover, they are generally affordable and widely used, and so can fit into your supply chain without drastically changing costs.
Another key way to minimise the use of plastics is to examine and adjust your returns policy.
eCommerce is notorious for its rate of returns, generating 4.8 times more packaging waste than offline purchasing. Since plastic is the most commonly used resource in eCommerce packaging a significant way to reduce your plastic waste could be by taking a look at your business’ returns policy. If you find that your business’ returns policy needs some changes, here are some things you could do:
When talking about personal growth, people often say that change starts from within - the same philosophy applies to businesses. Minimising plastic waste starts from changing the culture of your workforce, shifting the general mindset towards environmentalism and earth-consciousness. Such a culture shift brings great benefits including increasing the attractiveness of your business to potential employees.
According to Deloitee, half of Gen Z are pushing their employers to drive positive change regarding sustainability showing that there is a clear demand from workers for sustainability driven businesses. Moreover, having an eco-driven business culture could increase employee satisfaction as environmentalism is continuously more important in society. A study conducted in 2023, found that 93% of respondents felt happier when working in an environmentally friendly workplace, reflecting the impact of impact-driven business practices on employees.
There is no prescriptive way of educating your workforce - it all depends on your business and its internal structure. To achieve staff development, you could have sessions on ‘green skills’, regular updates about internal and global sustainability news, switch out plastic crockery for paper/bamboo alternatives, have clearly labelled recycling bins in the office, use digital documents as much as possible and co-ordinate team-building exercises that revolve around reducing plastic pollution either through action i.e a competition for which department can recycle the most plastic in a month.
Whilst working to reduce your companies' plastic footprint internally is crucial to tackling plastic pollution, there is already a staggering amount of plastic out in the environment that needs addressing. For this you can look to support direct action against global plastic waste.
Focusing on direct action is not only good for the planet, it can also be great for employee and customer engagement. Creating a shared mission to tackle the issue head on is a fantastic way to get your employees to rally behind internal changes. And sharing both your internal and global story helps cement your brand as a clear champion for the planet in the eyes of your customers. When done right, direct action can support both your sustainability goals and improve customer loyalty, retention and business growth.
To support direct action against plastic pollution, your business could utilise tools that link plastic waste collection to a customer’s shopping experience. Imagine a world where every purchase from your business directly aids action on plastic pollution. That is exactly what Greenspark does! Our platform allows you to set up automatic plastic recovery for different customer actions like sales subscribers and reviews. You can also choose to support plastic recovery ad hoc or even gift it to key stakeholders. It does the work for you by integrating with the tools you use online - like Shopify, Klaviyo, Stripe and more so you can worry about your business while we handle the climate action through vetted and verified impact partners.
Plastic waste is a massive global problem and one that despeartely needs more attention. There are a number of ways in which your business can be a force for good by taking action both internally and externally to your business. In almost all cases taking steps for the planet has knock on benefits for your business too in the form of a happier and more motivated team, more loyal customers and greater investment appeal in a time where all stakeholders are demanding more action. While doing this, it’s important to track the impact your business is making with tools like Greenspark, so that your workforce and customer base has access to your businesses climate action in real-time.
If you'd like to learn how your business can take direct action on plastic pollution through Greenspark one of our team would be more than happy to speak with you. Email us or book a call with us today to learn more!
