So Wolfgang this morning said that
'People only start to listen when you're tired of advocating or hearing
what you're advocating for.' So I guess this is really bad news
for my next 7 minutes.
Because I'm absolutely not tired of saying this:
REUSE
Reusable packaging. It might not sound that sexy
but I really think it is.
Because for the past 3 months, I had a chance to deep dive to this, talking to
emerging innovators, the people around the world challenging the status quo right now
Rethinking packaging. And one of the people I've met who absolutely blew my
mind is Thais Vojvodic, the sustainability manager of Cocacola Brazil.
And I met her a few weeks back when we had our new plastics economy workshop in London
so we gathered a group like this just a bit smaller.
maybe a little bit less impress of setting
But we focused on discussing how we moved toward that new economy.
And Thais was here on stage to talk about what they're currently doing in Brazil
with refillable bottles and I was so excited about this story
and it actually also seemed like the audience in that room were quite excited
about her story. So I'm gonna try to do what she did by showing some of her slides
So if I share this slide. The transformation of Coca-Cola bottle from the refillable
returnable glass bottle. Many of you probably remember it from your childhood
it was actually also the norm through the childhood of my
great grandparents and my grandparents. Until the launch of the lightweight of PET
bottle, that was introduced a few years later than I was born.
And the rest is history, right? Because plastic is especially for
disposable packaging has seen skyrocketing growth rate ever since.
That's not so weird, plastic is fantastic material protective economical
lightweight. But it also shows us this culture of disposiblity
our culture of convenience.
It's just now everywhere. And looking up at the packaging solutions
that had surrounded me in my 28 years of life. It's only single use and that
makes me think if we have forgotten the options of doing things differently.
But that brings me back to Thais from Brazil and her story about what they are then
doing differently rightnow in Brazil.
They have launched a new bottle. A new plastic bottle. They called it
The Universal bottle.
So whether it's Coke Fanta Sprite, it now goes into the same refillable renewable
plastic bottle.
That's quite a bold decision, right? Because we all know that the bottle design
itself for Coke has been so iconic for the brand since always, so why would they go
with such a decision. And I had a chance to get Phis when we were queuing up for
the toilet and I asked her 'How did you manage to push through this decision?'
And she said 'It's clear. This is business This is brilliant business case for Coke.'
With the shared design. They are experiencing that they can optimize operations.
And in addition to that, they can increase customers retention. In fact, people who buy
this Universal refillable returnable bottle on avg. 32% more loyal
to the Coke brand.
I think this story is absolutely inspirational
Because it shows us that reuse can work and that reuse can work at scale.
Reuse is an opportunity for you to move away from the standard business as usual
having packaging as light and as cheap as possible to something that's an asset
that you can use to creat new customer relationships.
Let's take a look at some other examples
Loop. Many of you probably already know it's a platform that you can buy
everyday products like ice cream & shampoo
But it redesigned superior packaging that you return to the businesses
for them to clean and refill and reuse
Like an ice cream box made of steel. So now you can fall asleep watching a
movie with your ice cream. And when you wake up a few hours later, the ice cream
is still frozen. So a great example of how
in a reuse model you can with superior design increase the user experience
or improve the user experience.
Another example from a completely different context, ALGRAMO. I interviewed these guys
from Chile, they have developed dispensing system on wheels.
They called it a tricycle. I'm not really sure what it means but it's solar-powered
It will turn up in front of your door, and people can go out and refill detergent
pet food, which is an apparently big thing in Santiago in the quantities they desire.
And because the system is smart, it will recognise the user, allow for cashless
payment and gather valuable insight.
That's just three examples of reuse and you might think that's great
but reuse is not gonna work for my product offering or my market segments or
in my geography.
But i wouldn't be so sure about this. Because my colleague Sarah and myself
have been gathering 69 examples of reuse systems from around the world.
And ranging across sectors from beverages to home care, personal care,
transport packaging, grocery shopping, ready meals and cups solutions.
So it really should be something for all of you to be inspired by.
But I do recognise that reuse is not gonna happened overnight.
It's gonna take investments.
It's gonna take more people leading this transition, more people having
courage to rethink packaging to set up pilots to see this working at scale.
But I really see as your oppoturnity to invest in the future, invest in the
shifting preferences of my generation. Tap into these new opportunity of
technology while taking a fast track to a circle economy.
And i hope that sounds interesting for because it really was meant to be a teaser
for the real interesting stuff which is this book. The Reuse book.
We've made a small book about reuse and it's really meant to help you get started with
Reuse. Be inspired. And it's such a pleasure for me to be able to launch it
today and share it with you. So in a couple of seconds,
we will share a QR code that will give you the immediate access to the book.
So if you could all take the phones out of the pockets and open the camera application
you might have to zoom in a little bit. And if it doesn't work, there will
be a QR code around the room in the break. So no excuses.
Are you ready for it?
Here is the QR code and I just want to finish off by saying.
I actually planned saying something about revolution but now Wolfgang also blew that up
I just wanna say I really hope you're ready for Reuse
and to make Reuse the new normal
Thank you so much!
(Applause)