RECYCLING PACKAGING
Retailers that enable shoppers to drop off cosmetic packaging into recycling boxes include Deciem (left), Harrods Milton Keynes (below) and L’Occitane (below, left)
“Keep reminding them that they can earn even more rewards if they take this action with you.”
But how can these schemes continue to evolve so that consumers see using recycling boxes as just standard behaviour?
It is a big question and one that needs a more widespread solution to kill off consumers’ addiction to convenience, says Sian Sutherland, co-founder of organisation A Plastic Planet. “We have been sold this unbelievable level of convenience for decades and anything that changes that is a massive uphill struggle for the shopper,” she explains.
“So, how can we make it completely easy for them? We need less individual take back schemes and more collaboration between the big retailers instead, so that small brands can follow in the slipstream of standardised recyclable packaging and where there are multiple of the same drop off points available for customers.”
‘
customers as it can be,” explains Mia Collins, Head of Beauty at Harrods. Other retailers outside of beauty have started tapping into unconventional methods of rewarding too.
Kids speciality footwear Plae allows customers to donate up to 4,500 of their accrued loyalty points to a charitable cause.
Etihad Airways rewards customers with a unique badge for their eco-friendly actions, such as carrying less baggage, and allows them to donate guest miles to green causes. Online beauty shop Face the Future, meanwhile, has extended its thinking past recycling, offering customers 100 extra points to make their order more sustainable.
“The company is using an integration tool called Eco Cart, which allows them to award points when customers opt to offset the carbon associated with their order,” adds Stevens.
CONNECTING THE DOTS Simply making these boxes accessible on the high street and leaving them there is not enough to create a long lasting change in consumer shopping behaviour either.
cosmeticsbusiness.com
The two biggest things for customers to be loyal when we are talking about this situation are convenience and rewards
The schemes need a long-term plan with clear communication to increase engagement levels.
“It takes around two months to create a new habit with a consumer,” explains Taylor. “A loyalty programme will inevitably help change a customer’s mindset over a long period of time because it generates behavioural changes and reinforces them. “But it needs to have regular advertising running alongside the main programme to drive its ongoing success, otherwise people end up slipping off.” If the recycling scheme is tied to your existing loyalty programme then make sure you are referencing it in every email you send to customers. “Not just the ‘welcome to the programme’ one, but when you send out point balance statements and round-ups of the week’s best discounts,” adds Stevens.
Retailers also need to be open and honest about their sustainability goals so these schemes are seen as authentic by the public.
“A retailer cannot fake their support for these things as customers will spot it a mile off and see that they are just being duped,” says Stevens. “I think if it ever came out that a retailer was just taking the empties out to the back of the shopping centre and putting them into the usual council recycling bin then all faith would be lost.”
It might also be a case of looking into other forms of delivering this recycling service to broaden its reach. “Just because you are a traditional bricks-and-mortar retailer does not mean that customers have to take empty products back into the store,” says Glen. “There are other ways of thinking about it. Many direct-to-consumer players have partnered with recycling partners to send customers a pouch which they fill up with empties at home and send back, all paid for by the company.
“[Coffee producer] Nespresso is one who makes it super easy for consumers to recycle products conveniently – they can send back their used coffee pods in a pre-paid pouch.
“It is good from the whole compostable side of things because we don’t have widespread compostable public bins at home, so this gives a solution”
April 2023 35
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
