12 minutes. That’s how long it typically takes from the moment we receive a single-use plastic bag to the moment we discard it. And those 12 short minutes barely register within the much longer life cycle of the plastic bag. The story of the plastic bag starts with extracting finite fossil fuels––like natural gas ––and usually ends in landfills, or worse, in our oceans, where they take decades to break down. It’s time that we identify a better, more resilient way forward for retail––one that maximizes valuable resources and benefits the customer, the retailer and the planet.

Every year, 100 billion single-use plastic bags are used annually in the U.S., and fewer than 10% of those are recycled. Plastic bags continue to be one of the top ten most littered items on our beaches, contributing to a mounting global waste crisis. And now, the urgency of these environmental challenges are coming head-to-head with a rapidly changing retail landscape, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay-at-home mandates from many governments and work-from-home policies from many companies are driving the growth of e-commerce and digitization as consumer habits shifted almost overnight. This shake-up in retail norms presents the ideal moment for reinventing the single-use plastic bag through new business models and design innovation. If there was ever a time to rethink the status quo of our retail system, it is now. 

The plastic bag plays a pivotal role in the retail experience; whether you’re buying groceries, ordering a shirt for delivery or picking up a prescription. It’s an extension of the store beyond its premises, and a convenience to the consumer, as we carry our goods home, pick them up from the curb or receive them at our doorsteps. To address the challenges of this shared experience around the plastic bag, we need a whole suite of  solutions that can fit the varied retail contexts and customer needs across different geographic, social and economic environments.  

This week, our Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag’s global innovation challenge, the Beyond the Bag Challenge, identified nine winning solutions that show the breadth and real-world promise of solutions that already exist to help reinvent retail and the plastic bag . Each brings a unique contribution to creating a new way to get our goods home, and together they can help pave the way forward, capitalizing on current market trends and shifting consumer habits in order to advance larger, industry-wide sustainable change. 

Tracking the bag throughout its life

New digital technologies make it possible for customers and retailers to see well past the 12 minutes that elapse between the current checkout counter to disposal of today’s single-use plastic bag. They provide a clearer, more holistic picture of the lifespan of the bag, and with it, elevate the transparency of entire supply chains.

EON uses the Internet of Things (IoT) to help retailers track inventory, manage reverse logistics and understand how bags are used by monitoring impact data throughout the bag’s value chain, and extending lines of sight into their full lifecycle.

SmartC, a solution co-created by 99Bridges and Envision Charlotte, leverages IoT technologies to connect reusable bags, enabled by smart tags, at participating retail stores, allowing retailers to reward customers with points, coupons or discounts every time they reuse their shopping bags. 

And what about all the existing reusable bags sitting in our closets? Fill it Forward created a tag that connects our bags to a mobile app where users track their environmental impact, help give back to charitable projects, and offer rewards that encourage reuse—significantly extending a bag’s lifetime.

Meeting customer needs

Amidst a changing retail environment, these innovations recognize that habits are difficult to break, and to address this challenge, they have innovated around our lifestyles. Their Reuse models offer durable alternatives to the current retail bag, improving on the user experience not only from a performance standpoint, but from an environmental perspective too.  

GOATOTE offers a kiosk system that provides us easy access to clean reusable bags, solving for those moments you do not have a reusable bag, but don’t want the trade-off of a single-use alternative offered at the store.

ChicoBag aims to have lightweight, compact, reusable bags readily available for a variety of customer interaction points––delivery, curb-side pick-up or in-store.

For those who shop online or use pick-up services, Returnity designs and manufactures reusable shipping bags and boxes for products already on the market, and provides the e-commerce and delivery packaging system that powers how these bags and boxes are used. 

Aligning with existing retail operations 

Some emerging innovators are focusing on material science innovations that result in bags that are indistinguishable from today’s plastic bag to a customer or retailer at checkout, but are sourced from renewable materials and follow different paths at end of use.  

To replace traditional thin film plastics, Sway offers a seaweed-derived material that is bio-based and has the potential to be carbon-negative at scale. Their replacement matches the strength and performance of traditional plastic bags.

PlasticFri, on the other hand, sources starch from agricultural waste, creating a bio-based, compostable bag.

As an  upgrade to traditional paper bags, Domtar is developing a new bio-based, recyclable material of 100% cellulose fiber that  is stretchable and stronger, able to stand up to multiple uses. When considering which type of materials to introduce to a location, it is equally important to assess the availability of local curbside organics collection and anaerobic digestion and composting facilities, to ensure that these bags can be processed at end-of-life. 

Today, the outsized impact of plastic bag waste demands innovative solutions. However, as companies work toward zero-waste goals, the packaging of items that go inside the bag is also an important consideration. In recognition of this, we are giving special recognition to two Beyond the Bag Challenge submissions as Circular Trailblazers. These companies are advancing refillable and reusable packaging systems for products across retail, from food to cleaning supplies, broadening the horizon for the waste-free future of retail. Algramo, a start-up based in Chile and now piloting in New York, has created a mobile dispensing system for personal care and cleaning products that allows shoppers to skip packaging all together. Loop, developed by TerraCycle, creates reusable and recyclable packaging alternatives for some well-known household products, eliminating the need for single-use packaging when customers visit a store, or deliver these items to their homes.  

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There is no one replacement for the current single-use bag––the solution lies in a combination of approaches that can fit into diverse retail markets.  And it’s critical to test these solutions. The nine winners of the Beyond the Bag Challenge––Chicobag, Domtar, EON, Fill it Forward, GOATOTE, PlasticFri, Returnity, SmartC and Sway––need further investment, refining and piloting to help set them up for success, with support from the retail partners who came together to create the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag. We look forward to the exciting work ahead to assess how these solutions can align with customer needs, the growing demand for circular solutions, and the changing face  of retail. 

Read the full report

Dec 15 – Today, Closed Loop Partners released a report dispelling myths and demystifying the rapidly growing landscape of plastic alternatives, with a focus on bio-based plastics, biopolymers and compostable products and packaging. The report unpacks the opportunities and challenges within the industry’s move toward these alternative materials, considering sustainable sourcing of feedstocks and end-of-life recovery pathways that recapture their material value after use.

Currently, only 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled globally, while 11 million metric tons of plastic waste enters our oceans every year––costing people, the planet and business*. In response, consumers and regulators are increasingly pushing companies to align their products and packaging with waste reduction and climate impact goals. This pressure has led to companies making ambitious public commitments for implementing plastic-free products, eliminating non-recyclable formats and increasing the recycled content in their packaging. This, in turn, has spurred a rapid and, at times, haphazard shift away from petroleum-based, single-use plastics that are bound for landfill. 

As companies deploy strategies to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics in their products and packaging, many are exploring bio-based plastics, biopolymers and compostable alternatives such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) and polylactic acid (PLA). If formulated in accordance with certification standards and captured properly after use, compostable packaging can contribute to net positive climate impacts by contributing to carbon sequestering, nutrient-rich compost and help increase diversion of food scraps from landfills. The promise of compostable packaging is resulting in rapid growth: the market for biopolymers and bio-based plastics is expected to reach nearly $27.9 billion by 2025, up from $10.5 billion in 2020, with over 2.8 million metric tons expected to be produced in 2025, up from 2.1 million metric tons in 2020**. 

However, compostable alternatives are not a silver bullet, and as they begin to enter the market at higher volumes, there is not enough recovery infrastructure to recapture their full value efficiently. Only about 185 full-scale commercial composting facilities in the United States accept food waste, and even fewer accept compostable-certified packaging. With new materials already outpacing the capacity of our existing recovery infrastructure, there is a critical need to address the misalignment between production and end-of-life to ensure even higher volumes of compostable packaging don’t end up in landfill in the future. Ultimately, biopolymers and compostable alternatives must sit within the broader context of a number of plastic waste mitigation strategies; they play a very specific role as one line of defense against waste––after reduction and reuse ––and should only be deployed in certain formats and contexts to drive value to organics processors. 

“This report does not seek to define one material as environmentally superior to another, but instead, dispels some myths around this growing sector of compostable packaging, laying the groundwork for informed decisions on when reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging might be most appropriate,” says Kate Daly, Head of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. “We continue to research, explore, and test, and invite you to join us on our collective journey toward a circular economy that eliminates waste and builds sustainable, inclusive systems for all.”

Closed Loop Partners applies a holistic circular economy framework to the assessment of these new materials, based on the firm’s unique expertise garnered from their ecosystem of funds. Closed Loop Partners’ investment platform spans venture capital to private equity, and the Center for the Circular Economy specializes in convening brands and stakeholders to solve shared material challenges. 

* UN Environment. Beat Plastic Pollution, Breaking the Plastic Wave: Top Findings for Preventing Plastic Pollution 

** Bioplastics & Biopolymers Market, Market update 2020: Bioplastics continue to become mainstream as the global bioplastics market is set to grow by 36 percent over the next 5 years

About Closed Loop Partners

Closed Loop Partners is a New York-based investment firm comprised of venture capital, growth equity, private equity and project finance, as well as an innovation center focused on building the circular economy. The firm has built an ecosystem that connects entrepreneurs, industry experts, global consumer goods and technology companies, retailers, foundations, financial institutions and municipalities. Their investments align capitalism with positive social and environmental impact by reducing waste and greenhouse gas emissions via materials innovation, advanced recycling technologies, supply chain optimization and diversion of materials from landfills. Learn more at www.closedlooppartners.com.

We are overlooking the equally visible plastics that are just as challenging to recover and reuse: the plastics that make up half the volume of every car; the plastics that make up 20 percent of the 55 million tons of electronic waste sent to landfill annually; the polyester (plastic) that represents 60 percent of all apparel fibers; and 42 percent of all non-fiber plastics which go to packaging. While we’ve developed recovery systems for some plastic packaging, we’ve failed to see the challenge holistically, in ways that address diverse forms of plastics in our system. Meanwhile, they have been steadily mounting in landfills, with limited to no end-of-life solutions.

The reality is that we need to solve for and build systems to prevent, reduce, reuse or recycle all plastic waste, not just packaging. Across industries and sectors, we must deploy all tools available to build a circular system for plastics. These include: harnessing design innovation to eliminate unnecessary plastic and reduce extraction of fossil fuels; scaling reuse systems and rental and resale platforms; investing in mechanical recycling and designing products that align with that system; and investing in advanced recycling technologies that can safely transform hard-to-recycle plastic waste into valuable new products or into building blocks to make new plastic or packaging.

Focusing on a single strategy to the plastic waste challenge compounds risks.

While solutions such as reuse and rental systems are critical to extending the life of a product, they are not necessarily plastic-free systems. Companies such as Rent the Runway allow users to subscribe to a library of clothing, allowing thousands of garments to be shared by 8 million customers. Even so, after dozens or even hundreds of uses, a clothing item likely will need to be retired, but currently no widely available, commercial recycling solutions exist to capture that textile waste. Even the most innovative companies leveraging reuse models for cups, food delivery or personal care packaging include some plastics or other valuable materials in their packaging or services that after many uses will need recycling. These solutions are a small part of supply chains today, but we believe they have a strong opportunity for growth. And as they continue to grow, it is important to think ahead about solutions for the ends-of-life of materials in these systems, to keep them in circulation.

If we consider mechanical recycling, plastics that undergo this process can run through it only about seven times before becoming too degraded, and mechanical technologies cannot process most of the 16.9 million tons of textile waste Americans send to landfill every year.

The current strategies to address plastic waste are complementary, but taken alone they will be ineffective at producing a circular system for plastics. Without a multi-pronged approach, we will continue to see growing stockpiles of plastic waste in all forms, from various industries. We are at a critical moment of consensus. Across industries and sectors, stakeholders agree that we want and need reduction in plastic and better management of the plastics being produced. Enabling these outcomes will require policy shifts, incentives, investment, education and long-term partnerships. And we will need to experiment with and invest in emerging and nascent solutions that can safely solve for difficult material types.

Advanced recycling technologies can contribute one piece to the puzzle, solving for our hardest-to-recycle plastic-based products, such as healthcare-related plastics, multi-layer packaging, apparel and building materials.

Like the plastic waste problem, there is a tendency to oversimplify advanced recycling. It is not a monolith; rather, it is a sector marked by distinct and diverse technology processes that purify or break down plastic to create virgin-quality outputs through a number of biological, thermal and/or catalytic processes including dissolution, glycolysis, pyrolysis and gasification. Closed Loop Partners has categorized these processes into three buckets: purification; decomposition; and conversion. Some technologies, such as pyrolysis, have been around for decades. Others are new and developing; all are improving and not all will be winners. Like anything, it is a growing and competitive landscape and those that are the most cost-effective with the most positive environmental impact likely will advance quickly.

Two very different stories emerged this week around advanced recycling technologies. Purecycle, a purification company, just closed a $250 million bond for its Ohio facility, after successfully proving its technology at scale by processing discarded carpet into clear, high-quality polypropylene. Meanwhile, another advanced recycling technology company, LOOP Industries, was put under the spotlight by a research firm for failing to meet expectations. The stories around Purecycle and LOOP Industries show the importance of deep due diligence and the need for continuous testing and honing of solutions to de-risk them before scaling. We’re continuing to evaluate purification, decomposition and conversion technology processes, their environmental and human health impacts, supply chain economics and policy landscape. The technology processes themselves do not determine whether a company or a process is “circular.” The stakeholders invested in creating circular systems do.

While we’ve developed recovery systems for some plastic packaging, we’ve failed to see the challenge holistically, in ways that address diverse forms of plastics in our system.

Historically, market incentives and policies have not favored circular outcomes from advanced recycling processes. In the United States, manufacturers are not rewarded for using recycled plastic, nor are they penalized for using virgin sources. This has meant that manufacturers have favored the lowest priced commodity on the market, often virgin plastics, and the economics for advanced recycling have bent towards supplying industry with fuel produced from plastics. However, mandates that require recycled content, brand commitments to use post-consumer recycled content for their products and packaging, and landfill bans are becoming more prevalent across diverse markets, increasing the demand for high-quality recycled plastic.

The biggest economic and environmental opportunity in advanced recycling is to build circular supply chains for plastics, meaning plastic-to-plastic loops, which ensure that we keep materials at their highest value within our economy for as long as possible. We can align the advanced recycling market towards circular principles by creating market incentives and supportive policies that recognize these technology processes as recycling when their outputs are directly looped back into plastic supply chains.

Are there unknowns related to these new technologies or processes? Yes. It’s critical that we gain a better collective understanding of the environmental and human health impacts of these recycling processes. We must understand what conditions need to be true to steer the industry towards a circular economy, or risk perpetuating a linear system. Closed Loop Partners is leading a research project with this type of impact assessment as one central objective of our study, alongside an assessment of collections and feedstock processing, and investment guidelines to align this sector to circular principles.

It took the solar industry 40 years to reach 1 million solar systems in the United States, but three years after hitting the 1 million mark in 2016, the U.S. surpassed 2 million systems. In 2010, only 4 percent of new electric capacity was solar, but by 2016, it was 40 percent. Technology development and building an industry around a novel technology takes time, incentives and long-term partnerships to drive investment and scale. Advanced recycling will be no different, and because the sector is newly developing, all stakeholders — brands, retailers, investors, plastic producers and recyclers, NGOs and citizens — have the opportunity and a role to play to ensure a safe and circular system and future.

In 2020, we are continuing our research in the sector to understand the environmental and human health impacts of advanced recycling processes, the policy measures and investable opportunities along the supply chain that can enable a circular future for plastics and a safe and sustainable future. We invite you to learn more about our work on advanced recycling here.

Originally published on GreenBiz. 

The Beyond the Bag Initiative, launched by the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, aims to identify, pilot and implement viable design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the current retail bag. Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy launched the initiative with Founding Partners CVS Health, Target and Walmart. Kroger joined as Grocery Sector Lead Partner, DICK’S Sporting Goods as Sports & Outdoors Sector Lead Partner, and Hy-Vee and Walgreens as Supporting Partners, alongside Conservation International and Ocean Conservancy as Environmental Advisory Partners. OpenIDEO is the Consortium’s Innovation Partner.

What does it take to reinvent the retail bag? And what solutions exist today? These are the questions we asked as we launched the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag in July of this year, bringing some of the nation’s most influential retailers together to solve for the 100 billion single-use plastic bags used annually in the U.S. These bags too often end up polluting our oceans, stuck in our trees or being wasted in landfills, and it’s time that we create a better path forward. 

In August, the Consortium opened the Beyond the Bag Challenge, inviting entrepreneurs, designers, suppliers and problem-solvers to submit solutions that replace the current single-use plastic bag. Through the Challenge, the Consortium brings to light future-forward, tech-enabled solutions that can help build a new system that serves the function of the retail bag in a sustainable, affordable and inclusive way––helping transport goods from store to destination in a way that aligns with diverse retail systems and delivers ease and convenience for all. Three months and more than 450 submissions later, it’s clear that an impressive range of innovative solutions exist. Challenge submissions span the globe across 60 different countries, and represent a range of company stages, from early concept startups to established, commercial businesses. 

We’re seeing three broad categories of innovation emerge––reusable designs, innovative materials and enabling technology––that highlight key opportunity areas, showing the range of solutions and potentially groundbreaking ways we can change retail.

How might these solutions play out in the world? What might a sustainable retail bag system look like? After evaluating hundreds of potential solutions through the lenses of sustainability, business and technical viability, accessibility, customer behavior and alignment with reuse and recovery infrastructure, the Consortium announced today a shortlist of promising solutions for further exploration [SEE SHORTLIST HERE]. 

Across the Shortlist, we’re seeing three broad categories of innovation emerge––reusable designs, innovative materials and enabling technology––that highlight key opportunity areas, showing the range of solutions and potentially groundbreaking ways we can change retail. These provide a window into the future, a teaser as to what might be to come. Identifying innovation is the first step, and with the right kind of testing, honing and piloting, we can start implementing new solutions and systems at scale. 

As we collectively become smarter about what the market needs, what consumers want in a retail experience and what new technologies might enable futures we can’t yet fully envision, we will seek to better understand how these and other solutions might work together to create an interconnected and informed system that will fundamentally shift the way we are currently shopping and getting goods home.

Reusable Designs Keep Materials in Play for Multiple Uses 

Systems-Driven Reusable Packaging Integration by Returnity

There is a growing innovation category for retail packaging centered on reuse. These solutions use durable materials that can serve the purpose of today’s single-use bag, but remain in circulation for multiple uses within a user-friendly system. Many of these solutions also involve transferring ownership back to the producers and manufacturers––shifting away from typical purchasing models and toward renting, leasing and subscription models for packaging. These include bags-as-a-service and shared-bag systems that incentivize companies to see their products or packaging as valuable assets worth investing in. Through the Challenge, we’re seeing how this broad category comes to life in a multitude of formats, especially at the initial customer interaction point––the point of sale. Solutions range from gurney-style carts that fit in the trunk of a car, to compact reusable bag withdrawal and return stations that sit at the checkout counter and continually cleaned, reusable containers that transport products directly to customers’ homes.

The innovations coming to the fore in this category have the potential to address real challenges in the retail experience. Reuse models address short-lived disposable options, extending the use time of the retail bag from today’s 12-minute average to multiple life cycles, keeping valuable materials in play at their best and highest use. However, for their full impact to be realized, it is important to dig deeper into the structures and systems that enable their long-term environmental and economic sustainability, examining reverse logistics and conducting life cycle assessments, among other areas for evaluation.

Innovative Climate-Friendly Materials Can Reduce Impacts on the Planet

#INVISIBLEBAG by Distinctive Action Ltd

Designers today are recognizing that the materials they choose for a product determine how its entire life cycle will play out, from start to end. As a result, there is a growing focus on material science innovation, and a reevaluation of what goes into products for a carbon-free future. The Challenge has brought to light a whole host of new materials that broaden the way we think about the retail bag––aiming for superior performance that better meets the needs of a diverse range of customers, without creating an outsized impact on the environment. These solutions include stretchy fibers derived from nature, water-soluble films, biopolymers processed from agricultural waste, natural materials like algae, seaweed and chitin, and upcycled materials like cotton. 

Many of these pioneering solutions draw from rapidly replenishable resources and seek to add material value at end-of-life, whether through composting or recycling systems. They diversify the resources we use to begin with, relieving pressure from just one primary source––especially fossil fuels. At the same time, we need to ensure that these new solutions don’t outpace our existing recovery infrastructure, and are actually recaptured as intended after use. 

Enabling Technologies Accelerate the Uptake of Smart, Sustainable Solutions 

IoT-enabled Food Delivery & Pickup System by Minnow Technologies

Beyond these innovations are the underlying technological processes and systems that create a scaffolding for other solutions or systems, opening up new exchanges with customers and working towards a bagless future. These might harness Quick Response (QR) codes and/or radio frequency identification (RFID) systems that enable companies and consumers, in effect, to check products or packaging in and out along their lifespan. This increases visibility and digital connectivity, which can drive better logistics and inventory management, informing strategic decision-making and incentivizing customers through “nudges” or reward programs. Innovative and “smart” delivery models, like in store kiosks or mobile applications, can also integrate with other categories––reusable designs or innovative materials––to deliver products.

It is critical that these solutions are able to scale commercially, align with market needs and integrate within existing systems of leading retailers, laying the groundwork for long-term change that cuts across industries.

Now, how do all of these solutions come together? From a birds eye view, the range of solutions is wide, with many of them complementary and potentially overlapping. If we take into account all of the ways we use the retail bag, and all of the different people around the world using retail bags, this diversity of thinking works to our advantage. And we know there are yet more avenues to explore. As we collectively become smarter about what the market needs, what consumers want in a retail experience and what new technologies might enable futures we can’t yet fully envision, we will seek to better understand how these and other solutions might work together to create an interconnected and informed system that will fundamentally shift the way we are currently shopping and getting goods home.

Ultimately, it may not be a single solution, or even a few that solve the problem. With ever increasing ways to purchase goods come ever increasing needs for a myriad of interventions that solve for niche sets of needs within specific customer or delivery segments. In reality, there is no panacea to this complex problem––different geographic, economic and social contexts demand varied approaches that cater to diverse sets of needs. If we are to change the future of retail, these solutions, from reuse models to innovative materials to the enabling technologies, need to communicate with and interrelate within a holistic ecosystem, explore new pathways of collaboration to fill in gaps or amplify one another’s strengths, and work to advance the market together, rather than separately.  

This is just the beginning of the journey, both for solutions in the Challenge and for the Consortium collectively. In the lead up to the announcement of Challenge winners in early 2021, we’ll begin working more closely with the Shortlisted innovators, helping refine their solutions, digging deeper to understand their full economic, environmental and social impact, and exploring emerging trends. And as we begin to learn where and how these solutions might apply to today’s challenges as well as tomorrow’s, we will work to advance and implement those which can bridge this innovation gap and have an eye on adaptability and agility, or on those that might enable the successful implementation of another concept or emerging technology––all to ensure we are rolling out new ventures that not only work within the operational parameters of our Partners, but serve both customers and the market at large. Overall, it is critical that these solutions are able to scale commercially, align with market needs and integrate within existing systems of leading retailers, laying the groundwork for long-term change that cuts across industries [SEE SHORTLIST HERE].

As we enter the next phase of this initiative, we are excited to work across the Consortium’s ecosystem of emerging innovators and established retail institutions to drive toward a more inclusive, affordable and sustainable future. Join us on this journey, and stay tuned for our upcoming announcement of the final Beyond the Bag Challenge winners in early 2021.

New York (Oct. 9, 2020) — Today, Hy-Vee Inc. joined the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag as a Supporting Partner, alongside Founding Partners CVS Health, Target and Walmart, and joined by DICK’S Sporting Goods, Kroger and Walgreens. Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy launched the Consortium and its Beyond the Bag Initiative earlier this year with the aim of identifying, testing and implementing viable design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the current retail bag.

Hy-Vee, Inc. is an employee-owned supermarket chain operating more than 275 retail stores across eight Midwestern states. “The opportunity to join the Beyond the Bag Initiative and address the shared challenges presented by single-use plastics with some of the largest and most influential retailers in our country is crucial  as we remain committed to reducing our environmental impact,” said Jay Marshall, Hy-Vee’s Vice Chairman and President of Hy-Vee’s Supply Chain and Subsidiaries. “Through this collaboration, we can truly move the needle on a global waste issue and bring to life some much-needed solutions. We look forward to contributing our knowledge and insights and collectively collaborating with other Consortium Partners to pave the way for a more sustainable future.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Hy-Vee to the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag. The collaborative power of our Consortium enables us to have impact at scale and accelerate the pace of innovation to find alternatives to the current retail bag,” says Kate Daly, Managing Director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. “We continue to invite other retailers to join us and send a unified signal for transformational change to address this long-standing environmental challenge.”

The Kroger Co. is the Grocery Sector Lead Partner of the Consortium, directing priorities and activities for the initiative within the specific sector. “Our commitment to phase out single-use plastic bags across our enterprise is a critical part of our Zero Hunger | Zero Waste social impact plan,” said Lisa Zwack, Kroger’s Head of Sustainability. “We’re thrilled to welcome Hy-Vee to the Consortium and we encourage other retailers to join our search for innovative, sustainable solutions to the traditional single-use plastic bag.”

Single-use plastic bags are among the top 10 items found on beaches and waterways, and it’s estimated that we use 100 billion plastic bags per year in the U.S., contributing to a global waste challenge. The short use (12 minutes, on average) and long lifespan of the plastic bag have led to rising concerns. This is a challenge that is top-of-mind for communities and consumers who are concerned about the impact of single-use plastics on our environment and for brands who are seeking more sustainable solutions. Current alternatives can be costly and inconvenient, often trading one environmental issue for another. The retail bag needs reinventing.

In August, the Consortium launched a global innovation challenge to source solutions to replace the current plastic bag – including tech-enabled reuse models, new materials, and software and hardware innovations. The Challenge closed last week with more than 450 submissions. Consortium Partners, including retailers and Environmental Advisory Partners, alongside third-party experts will carefully review and select the Shortlist and Winners. All submissions are viewed through the lenses of sustainability, accessibility, customer behavior and alignment with reuse and recovery infrastructure. Winning concepts are eligible to receive a portion of $1 million in funding, participate in a Circular Accelerator to receive further assistance in scaling, and access testing and potential piloting opportunities.

The initiative not only brings together major retailers as Consortium Partners, but also engages with stakeholders across the bag value chain, including suppliers, materials recovery facilities, municipalities, advocacy groups and others to support this collaborative approach designed to promote viable market solutions that can scale, and bring value to retailers, customers and end markets. The Consortium takes a holistic three-year approach to identify and scale affordable, accessible and less wasteful solutions. It will aim to test and launch near term solutions early on in the Initiative, while also continuing to refine longer term solutions to ensure that the industry is designing both for today and tomorrow’s needs. The initiative spans multiple complementary workstreams, spurring innovation, advancing materials recovery through infrastructure investments, identifying best practices for policy and engaging consumers.

About Hy-Vee

Hy-Vee, Inc. is an employee-owned corporation operating more than 275 retail stores across eight Midwestern states with sales of $10 billion annually. The supermarket chain is synonymous with quality, variety, convenience, healthy lifestyles, culinary expertise and superior customer service. Hy-Vee ranks in the Top 10 Most Trusted Brands and has been named one of America’s Top 5 favorite grocery stores. The company’s more than 85,000 employees provide “A Helpful Smile in Every Aisle” to customers every day. For additional information, visit www.hy-vee.com.

About the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners

The Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners convenes competitors to solve material challenges and advance the circular economy. Its first initiative, the NextGen Consortium, united leading food and beverage companies to identify and commercialize a widely recyclable, compostable and/or reusable cup. Twelve winning cup solutions were selected and the Consortium is supporting the testing and piloting of these new solutions to accelerate their path to scale. Now, in partnership with leading retailers in the United States, the focus is on the single-use plastic retail bag, a challenge and opportunity that is top-of-mind for communities and consumers concerned about the impact of single-use plastics on our environment. Learn more about the Center’s work here.

About the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag

The Beyond the Bag Initiative, launched by the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, aims to identify, pilot and implement viable design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the current retail bag. Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy launched the initiative with Founding Partners CVS Health, Target and Walmart. Kroger joined as Grocery Sector Lead Partner, DICK’S Sporting Goods as Sports & Outdoors Sector Lead Partner and Hy-Vee and Walgreens as Supporting Partners, alongside Conservation International and Ocean Conservancy as Environmental Advisory Partners. OpenIDEO is the Consortium’s Innovation Partner.

Read the full report

New York, Sept 24 – Today, Closed Loop Partners’ innovation center, the Center for the Circular Economy, announced the release of its timely report, The Circular Shift: Four Key Drivers of Circularity in North America. The report highlights critical trends driving circularity in the region, putting circular economy solutions at the center of business strategy, innovation development, policy changes, and new institutional partnerships.

The tumultuous events of 2020 have shed light on the importance of strong, stable, transparent systems, exposing the risks of overcomplicated, opaque supply chains and the limitations of continually extracting finite resources. In North America and around the world, supply chain disruptions, growing amounts of waste, and health and safety risks have called attention to the flaws of business-as-usual. As these challenges come to the fore, the urgency of rethinking systems that throw $10 billion worth of resources into U.S. landfills has increased. With growing investments and interest in less wasteful systems, the circular economy in North America is in the midst of a sea change.

Since 2014, Closed Loop Partners has been operating and investing in the circular economy, finding opportunities in the space and supporting its rapid growth across the U.S. Drawing from the firm’s investment intelligence and its Center’s research, the report delves into the Four Key Drivers of the Circular Economy in North America, exploring how innovation, investment, policy and partnership act as key enablers of the emerging economic model.

These factors shape and strengthen the landscape for circularity as investable opportunities have noticeably advanced, with momentum and innovation in the space growing rapidly. Capitalizing on the circular economy ultimately promises to recapture business value, offering a $4.5 trillion global opportunity by 2030, according to Accenture. Unexpected partnerships and visionary policy will be essential to accelerate the shift toward an economic model that is enduring, and able to withstand future shocks.

Against the backdrop of this year’s NYC Climate Week, the link between the circular economy––the reduction of both extraction of raw materials and of waste––and the consequences of climate change have never been stronger, or more apparent. The circular economy is not a singular solution, nor a short-term fix. To achieve circularity goals, such as decarbonization and dematerialization, change must be sweeping and collaboration must be far-reaching. Much like environmental solutions must include every stakeholder in the path forward, so must the circular economy.

“The clock is ticking on our current linear economic system and the circular economy offers a path forward: a robust framework that aligns the interests of shareholders, corporations, local communities and the environment,” says Kate Daly, Managing Director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. This report builds on the achievements to date and the necessary actions to move forward, underscoring the urgency of focused investment, innovation opportunities, policy change and unexpected collaborations to achieve system-wide change.

It’s a universal experience. You make a purchase…perhaps it’s a candy bar or aspirin at your local pharmacy, or your weekly groceries, or a new shirt…and you have to make a decision. How do you carry your purchase home? Do you take a single-use plastic bag, knowing that it could persist in the environment for hundreds of years? Is a paper bag the better choice? Did you remember your reusable tote bag?

This may seem like a small moment, but with 100 billion single-use plastic retail bags thrown away in the U.S. each year, you’re right to consider the outsize impact your decision can have. At the Center for the Circular Economy, we work with brands, retailers, recyclers, NGOs and others to elevate questions like these beyond a confusing individual choice and instead imagine the systems change needed for a future where waste is not an option.

Today marks the launch of the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag, our collective call to reimagine how we get goods home. Too many plastic bags end up decorating trees, polluting oceans, or wasted in landfills, and it’s time we imagine something better. Given the scale of this challenge, cross-industry collaboration is critical. Closed Loop Partners and its Center for the Circular Economy launched the Consortium alongside Founding Partners CVS Health, Target and Walmart, and joined by Kroger and Walgreens, and environmental organizations Conservation International and Ocean Conservancy to bring competitors together to solve a shared challenge. And to increase the impact and scale of our work together the Consortium is inviting more retailers to join the effort.

Too many plastic bags end up decorating trees, polluting oceans, or wasted in landfills, and it’s time we imagine something better.

Solving a complex global waste issue requires collaboration among diverse stakeholders to achieve a shared vision. Collectively, organizations can send a unified signal to the market and world at large, demonstrating their commitment to change and incentivizing the value chain, from manufacturers to recyclers, to adopt more sustainable practices that secure a waste-free future for the products and packaging we all use every day.

It’s not the first time Closed Loop Partners has convened unexpected and unprecedented partnerships to solve a shared challenge. In 2018 we launched the NextGen Consortium with the goal of redesigning the hot and cold fiber to-go cup with leading competitors Starbucks and McDonald’s. A year and a half later, following 480 innovative cup designs and the selection of 12 winners, four sustainable cup solutions were piloted in local cafes in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year. The findings from those pilots alongside extensive material and performance testing inform our next steps for the implementation of reusable, recyclable, and compostable cup solutions, and the infrastructure investments needed to support them. Our next journey brings together the world’s largest retailers who have a shared vision of reinventing the retail bag, with customer convenience, accessibility, inclusiveness, innovative design, and positive environmental outcomes all key priorities.

The Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag’s Beyond the Bag Initiative will take a holistic approach to implementing new systems that serve the function of today’s single-use plastic retail bag. Our goal is to identify, test and scale new solutions, while bolstering the recovery infrastructure necessary to retain the value of their materials. Reimagining the retail bag is only one step; the entire lifecycle of any new product must be considered. That’s why the Consortium will work to improve infrastructure for the reuse or recovery of alternative designs and require that new solutions bring material value to our recovery systems.

The old question at check-out of “paper or plastic” has been replaced by some additional options, but whether a bag is made out of paper or plastic or cotton all of these materials bring some tradeoffs. The traditional single-use plastic retail bag, with an average use time of 12 minutes, is derived from unsustainable fossil fuels. While these bags can technically be recycled, few actually make it to a recycling facility. And, if they do, they typically aren’t a high enough value product to make the economics of the recycling system work. Alternatively, paper bags, sometimes viewed as the more sustainable solution, are made from a more readily renewable resource but can drive deforestation and some studies have found they are more energy-intensive to manufacture. Other materials, whether bioplastics, fabric totes or something else all come with their own set of baggage and carbon footprint. The fact is: there is no convenient, sustainable, widespread solution available to all today.

Learn more about the complexities of the current bag landscape in our report, A New Way Home.

Read report

To identify new, innovative and inclusive solutions to the retail bag, the Consortium is launching, in partnership with OpenIDEO, the Beyond the Bag Challenge, inviting innovators, suppliers, designers and problem-solvers from around the world to share their ideas for sustainable solutions. Do you have an idea that can scale? Submit your idea here after applications open on August 3rd. Materials derived from novel sources, innovative reuse solutions, and solutions that eliminate the need for a bag altogether are all welcome.

We are excited to embark on this three-year partnership with leading retailers to find a new way to get goods home. Today is always the best day to begin to reimagine a better future; the Beyond the Bag Initiative is looking for innovative solutions that align the interests of people, the planet and business. We invite you to join us on our journey.

Local cafes, cities and students joined the NextGen Consortium’s collaborative efforts to advance reusable, recyclable and compostable cup solutions in pilots across the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year.

Two years ago, the NextGen Consortium asked innovators: “How might we design the next generation fiber cup to be recoverable on a global scale, while maintaining the performance standards we know and trust?” From the start, we knew that our ability to successfully address the systemic challenge of cup waste would require strong collaboration across the entire cup ecosystem – from brands, suppliers and innovators, to municipalities, materials recovery facilities and mills, to advocacy groups and nonprofits, to the broader public. And we’ve been collaborating with these essential stakeholders, and others, ever since.

The NextGen Consortium serves as a collaborative platform for larger brands looking to move the needle on sustainability. By working together we’re one step closer to finding long term solutions, quicker than we would on our own — Jessica Marshall, Sustainability at McDonald’s

The Consortium’s journey began with the NextGen Cup Challenge —an open call for sustainable cup solutions that resulted in nearly 500 submissions from more than 50 countries. Twelve Cup Challenge winners were given the opportunity to enter the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator or the Advanced Solutions cohort; programs aimed at further developing the select winning cup companies – bringing them closer to pilot and market-readiness. And in early 2020 we launched The NextGen Pilot Readiness Program, a series of live, in-market pilots in the San Francisco Bay Area to further test and refine promising reusable and single-use solutions in surrounding local cafes.

We’re excited to keep learning, testing and exploring new cup technologies with the NextGen Consortium. The collaboration between companies, innovators and stakeholders is critical in our journey to find, and bring to scale, a more sustainable cup. — Chris McFarlane, Project Manager at Starbucks

NextGen Pilot Teams

●CupClub: A returnable cup ecosystem, providing a service for drinks. Think bike sharing, but for cups.
●Muuse : A deposit-based platform for smart, reusable beverage packaging, connecting their cups—and third party products—to Internet of Things technologies.
● Footprint: Fully formed fiber-based cups, lids and straws with an aqueous-based coating that is recyclable and compostable.
●PTT MCC Biochem: Recyclable cups with an innovative, bio-based BioPBS™ coating that makes the cup certified for compost in an industrial compost facility.

The Consortium’s pilots took place across multiple clusters of local cafes in San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Oakland. We evaluated cups and cup systems on their technical feasibility, business viability, user desirability, and systemic circularity. And, through it all, the collaborative spirit came to the fore as the critical ingredient for success.

Tackling a challenge as complex and massive as global cup waste requires a multitude of stakeholders—and it’s important to activate them from the start in order to advance the entire ecosystem. The pilots’ success hinged on collaborative municipalities (San Francisco, Palo Alto, Oakland), local neighborhood associations and universities eager to drive awareness, willing and excited local cafes to help establish a network effect of pick up and drop-off points, curious customers to experiment with new habits and an engaged media to drive awareness. After engaging all of these stakeholders and putting the cups to the test in local cafes, what did we learn?

Customer and Barista Insights Drive Rapid Iterations
Every minute counts when it comes to encouraging the uptake of reusable cup systems. And every user engagement offers a valuable opportunity for feedback. Customers have to sign up to a mobile app to log their cup, navigate the payment process, receive their beverage and ultimately return their cup to either a cafe or a drop-off point. Each step of this journey impacts their perception of reusable cups. For example, customer satisfaction was higher when there was a lost cup fee rather than an upfront deposit, and customers breathed easy after an alert confirmed a successful cup return. Similarly, baristas provided vital feedback. Even a simple verbal prompt asking customers whether they’d “like their order in a reusable cup” increased interest and engagement. These insights, alongside the experimentation mindset that characterized the pilots, enabled teams to rapidly prototype and improve according to key learnings.

Different Local Cafes Banded Together to form Clusters for the Pilots
Clusters are areas where 5 or more stores are located within a 5-minute walk. This walk, or the “pedestrian shed,” is considered the distance people are willing to walk before opting to use transit instead. Cup drop-off points work best when along a customer’s existing route. Local cafes including Coupa Cafe, Verve Coffee Roasters, Andytown, and Equator Coffees formed clusters, opened up their retail locations and helped lay the groundwork for the Pilot rollouts. During the pilots we saw some cups distributed at one cafe and returned to another. To hit a critical mass of users and truly scale reusable cup systems, support for this kind of behavior is imperative. It is also highly complex and requires honing and thoughtful planning as well as collaboration across multiple brands.

A cluster of local cafes and drop-off points

City Governments, Universities and NGOs Played a Critical Role in Galvanizing Momentum
Usership, especially early on, is directly tied to awareness. Data is most informative at higher volumes. The City of Palo Alto’s Zero Waste team was instrumental in identifying retail partners for the Pilot and educating their network, including zero waste leads in neighborhoods, about the pilots. The City of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment team was also engaged and eager to learn more about reusable cup solutions, especially in the face of proposed regulations and ordinances. The non-profit organization UPSTREAM made key introductions to city officials and shared essential information regarding upcoming ordinances and policies. The network effect is real. By engaging these organizations and their respective communities, our reach multiplied, attracting more pilot participants, thus gathering more data to optimize systems and prepare for the mass market.

The success of the pilots was built on the foundations of collaboration, which engaged diverse stakeholders and enabled agile and quick responses to feedback. COVID-19 brought unforeseen challenges and intensified the question, how can we maintain customer trust with reusable cups? Throughout the pilots, the reusable solutions adhered to rigorous washing protocols, including one team utilizing an off-site industrial facility to ensure the strictest hygiene standards were maintained. The pandemic has further emphasized the importance of sanitation and health, and the critical need to communicate these elements effectively to customers.

Moving forward, collaboration among diverse stakeholders is essential to ensure that innovative new systems of consumption can bring convenience and delight, while reducing the environmental footprint of our daily habits. The NextGen Consortium will continue to work with the Cup Challenge winners, as well as other promising cup innovations, to advance their solutions, while simultaneously strengthening and building the cup recovery ecosystem as a whole. This includes exploring new processes and working with waste collectors, materials recovery facilities, municipalities, and paper mills, among others, to explore the opportunities around cup recycling and composting. Our pilots in the San Francisco Bay Area provided invaluable feedback on how we can collectively enhance the drinking experience in a way that stakeholders (and the environment) can feel good about. And we’re excited to continue to accelerate the future of more sustainable cups.

CupClub’s Cup Chariot in action on Stanford University’s campus