Reimagining Plastic Packaging

Today we sit down with Hugo Lynch, Sustainability Lead at Abel & Cole to unpack the challenges and lessons from launching a successful circular packaging initative.

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Team Size: 3. The Abel & Cole sustainability team is a killer trifactor consisting of Hugo Lynch, responsible for the strategy, focusing on Scope 1&2 and Scope 3 related projects (e.g., food waste, packaging), Ed Ayton, ethical sourcing manager responsible for supplier relationships and policy and Ania Gancaz, the Food Guardian, upholding their mission to donate 40% of food waste and redirect the rest away from landfill.

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Team set up: Independent function. This set up works well for the team as it allows them to go all-in on sustainability initiatives (rather than working towards other operational KPIs). The team previously sat within Marketing but found that the needs of sustainability had to stretch outside the messaging topic to involve operations, technical teams, sourcing and buyers. B Corp helped make the business case for this organisational shift.

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Latest Initiative: Club Zero Refillable Milk.

Let’s unpack the details….

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Packaging often receives disproportionate attention despite its minor impact on carbon inventories. Nonetheless, showcasing sustainability values through packaging is a smart move. Abel & Cole's Club Zero Refillable Milk initiative reimagines plastic as the sustainable and cost-effective refill option, defying the conventional anti-plastic sentiment.

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The Impact: Launched in October 2023, the initiative boasts a 75% return rate, lots of feedback, and enthusiastic customer engagement.

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Why plastic bottles? After extensive modelling, 3 years, 7 teams of experts and 3 failed experiments, plastic came out on top over glass as the best refill option. Reusing plastic bottles just x4 times slashes the carbon footprint of single use bottles by 50%, whilst glass needs x15 returns for similar savings (the reason being it is x7 heavier than plastic, therefore adding significant weight to the delivery vehicles).

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Why milk? Because it's a top-seller so can have the biggest impact as a product switch. Customers were eager for a milk round, and Abel & Cole had the infrastructure for returns, making it a smart choice.

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Hugo’s advice for other practitioners:

1. Launch at scale: incremental introductions don’t make sense. It causes more confusion for the consumer if they can only return certain products (e.g., full fat and semi-skinned milk) and not others (e.g., guernsey milk). This tends to result in disengagement.
2. Be realistic: Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by banking on the ‘best case scenario’. Aim for mid case scenarios e.g., Abel & Cole knew they could hit their carbon targets after 4 returns which felt reasonable. If you set ambitious targets and struggle to meet them, it is harder to make the business case for continued investment.
3. Crystal clear messaging on the packaging: Let’s not kid ourselves that all customers actually read our emails. Packaging instructions matter, ensure there is clear messaging to let customers know how to return the bottle.
4. Maintain a cadence: Regular cross-team catch ups across all relevant teams (e.g., procurement, customer service, marketing, operations) to ensure everyone is aligned.
5. Budget for experimentation: It’s rare that you land on the perfect scenario the first time around, budget this into your strategy. Abel & Cole, back in 2021, trialled milk pouches. This didn’t work but they continued to innovate until something stuck.
6. Be mindful: Consider what’s appropriate to refill vs what isn’t - if you can't get it back it’s not worth upweighting the amount of packaging on the basis that it ‘could’ be refilled.
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Get in touch with Hugo, he has years of knowledge to share.