Ecoveritas - A data-driven approach

Packaging data specialist, ecoveritas, shares its perspective on the FMCG sector and the consumer’s changing relationship with sustainability.

Contributed by Andrew McCaffery, EPR Director, ecoveritas

Andrew McCaffery, EPR Director at ecoveritas, told SPN: “When we look back at the history of the retail industry, we recognise key landmarks such as the first cash registers, the age of advertising and more recently, the rise of online retail. Sustainability has the potential to be just as impactful. Global consumers are actively switched on to green issues and are looking to affect positive change how they can, and for most of us, that’s in our buying decisions.

The FMCG sector, across both traditional brick and mortar and e-commerce platforms, is one of the most innovative categories found anywhere, when it comes to creating sustainable supply chains. With carbon reduction and more effective use of plastics at the top of the agenda, brands are truly understanding that sustainability is moving far beyond buzzword or marketing jargon – it’s consumer-driven.

We are going through a period of extreme change – new schemes and legislative programmes are unfolding concurrently, which can understandably cause a great deal of confusion for brand owners and their supply chains. We are seeing the direct introduction of changes such as the UK Plastic Packaging Tax and Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and further afield to the EU Packaging Levy, as well as further guidance on how sustainability is communicated in the form of the UK Competition & Market Authority’s Green Claims Code.

However, for many FMCG brands, the very top of the legislative agenda is Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR. This is the policy through which ‘producers’, those businesses that manufacture or commission products and packaging, are given physical or financial responsibility for the treatment or disposal of post-consumer products.

new EPR regulations

With new EPR regulations, the cost of collecting household waste will be returned, at least in part, to the brand. Notably, however, the rollout has been postponed to 2024, a year later than planned. At the same time, the UK Government has thoroughly softened the edges of the scheme, seeming to take a much more cautious approach than was previously posited.

Andrew McCaffery,

EPR Director, ecoveritas

Our position at ecoveritas is that by retaining Packaging Waste Recovery Notes (PRN) but also introducing a system of top up fees, we must be cautious of increasing cost to the FMCG industry and its packaging partners without significantly increasing recycling levels – otherwise, what is the end game of EPR? There is significant evidence that suggests increased recycling rates are as a result of government investment in waste infrastructure, so we must be careful that we are not focussing too much on the wrong areas for long-term change, sufficient funding has to be guaranteed to go to collection or recycling growth could stall.

At ecoveritas, we use our data-driven approach to sustainability to support brands of every size with all areas of compliance, legislation and reporting. We see a very valuable role for PRNs in the evidencing of recycling, but we feel it must be fixed or capped to ensure a fair balance distribution to the collectors and fixing the costs to FMCG industry.”