Exploring the symbiosis of single-use plastic packaging and convenience grocery.
As the Packaging Manager of a large convenience retailer, I work with stakeholders to improve packaging sustainability for the organisation’s range of over 3,000 own brand products. My primary focus in this role has been to improve the circularity of own brand packaging by reducing the complexity of materials and increasing their recycled content. In response to pressure from customers and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), the organisation is also targeting a 15% reduction in its plastic footprint. The focal organisation has a pressing need to be seen by its customers and members to reduce avoidable waste and carbon emissions. Concurrently, tensions exist between customer demands to reduce plastic packaging, the firm’s wider Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ambition of a net zero carbon footprint by 2040, and the needs of the organisation to be socially responsible and financially sustainable. This offers opportunities for me to develop my persona as a leader as I attempt to influence colleagues to reduce plastic packaging within their product categories.
Since the BBC TV Programme Blue Planet II first brought issues of marine plastic pollution to mass consumer attention in 2017, negative sentiment towards synthetic polymers as packaging materials has become almost universal. The BBC book of the same title describes the euthanising of a Cuvier’s Beaked Whale after its beaching off the coast of Norway. Post-mortem examination showed it had starved almost to death after ingesting plastic packaging. Moreover, high mortality in dolphin calves may be caused by microplastics in the mothers’ milk (Honeyborne and Brownlow, 2017). One review of scientific papers from 1960 to 2020 found that over 2,200 species of marine life interact with oceanic litter, 70% of which is plastic (Tekman et al., 2020). Subsequent media campaigns targeted specific items that were allegedly difficult to recycle in established waste management systems, such as carrier bags, coffee cups, and sandwich skillets (BBC, 2019). Over 90% of consumers would like supermarket aisles that only sell products free from plastic packaging (Sabanoglu, 2018). Core to this sentiment is the presupposition that reducing plastic packaging has proportionate effects on marine litter.
The NGO Greenpeace conducts an annual survey of supermarket plastic consumption and strongly criticises those deemed inactive in reducing it. Conversely, the Environment Act of 2021 aims not to reduce single-use plastics but to create a circular economy for them by ensuring those brands placing packaging on the market are responsible for the full net cost of recycling (DEFRA, 2021). Customer perceptions of ‘sustainable’ packaging may be synonymous with reducing plastic, yet other issues such as recyclability, carbon footprint, impact on food waste and commercial sustainability are also important considerations. Notwithstanding positive intentions of a circular plastics economy, consumer preferences are shifting towards materials such as glass, steel, and aluminium, which, whilst perceived to be ‘greener’, often have higher carbon emissions (Peake et al., 2020), and so may be less sustainable.
Recent decades saw UK convenience retailers transition towards a reliance on single use packaging. This is demonstrated by the emergence of ‘food to go’, the replacing of fresh food serve-over counters with pre-packed protein and dairy goods as retailers try to stem the loss of customers to the Discounters, self-service coffee machines, and the replacement of trained greengrocers with pre-packed fruit and vegetables. Hectic consumer lifestyles inspired the development of ready to cook packaging formats such as ovenable films and trays. In turn, single use packaging has been redesigned around convenience, manifesting in smaller case sizes, single serve drinks bottles, portion packs, and upright portrait merchandising. Space restrictions and commercial pressure on staff operating costs led to the development of ‘shelf ready’ packaging, which requires minimal handling by store colleagues, and ever smaller case sizes enabling as big a range as possible within a small store setting. I suggest that the progressive intertwining of these two business models led to a relationship of mutual interdependence between them. Convenience retail has come to rely on single use plastics as the enabler of its core business model. Conversely, the manufacturers of single-use packaging are commercially reliant upon the retailers that sell these products in their stores. The relationship between them is thus symbiotic (Fig. 1). A reversal of this symbiosis requires financial investment, revolutionary and architectural innovation, developments in store range and space, and behaviour change by consumers. As retailers are unlikely to make all of these investments in the uncertain hope that customer behaviour change will actually happen, it is therefore no easy task.
This blog explores my learning and development in leading a reduction in the organisation’s plastic footprint, whilst managing conflicts between consumer and media pressure to reduce plastic packaging and the need for business as usual. It describes how I developed my strategic leadership by developing a sustainable packaging policy at the organisation and culminates in lessons learned about my leadership performance and personality traits during the project.
I will attempt to answer the following questions:
Will reducing our reliance on single use plastic packaging have positive or negative impacts on customer perceptions of the organisation?
Can we overcome the symbiosis of single use plastics and convenience retail?
How will this work contribute towards my development as a senior leader?
The next question that springs to mind is to investigate whether positive perception will lead to greater footfall, increased turnover and, very importantly, customer behaviour change, however this question is outside the scope of this project and only time will tell. These research questions will be investigated through three theoretical lenses. Firstly, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is central to this topic, since reducing plastic packaging is seen by our customers as a key element of the social and environmental responsibility of food retailers. There is a pressing need for retailers to design packaging in line with circular economy principles and to contribute to a reduction in marine litter. Leadership, as well as alternatives such as management and group work, are required to create the internal context needed to effect change. A social construction of reality using networks and the distribution of power is required to convince stakeholders that this issue must be addressed. Finally, Stakeholder Management is needed to influence the internal parties with managerial accountability and the external parties with political and social authority over these issues. Intersecting these theories is the present business need of the convenience grocery sector to reduce its reliance on single use plastic packaging.
This issue is important to me because, as a responsible citizen and parent, I wish to leave a positive career legacy. In my early career I developed single use packaging for private businesses and have been partly responsible for placing billions of single use plastic items on the market over twenty years. In recent years I have become increasingly cognisant of environmental challenges to this work on two fronts: climate change and plastic pollution. These two goals can sometimes conflict, as the lowest carbon option may be the one with the most plastic e.g. 100% recycled PET bottles compared to virgin glass bottles.
This issue is different from other problems in that there is no single, unified strategy across brands, retailers, and governments as to the best course of action. Brands are developing compostable solutions, yet local authorities have not established the infrastructure to compost them. Customers want less plastic, yet governments are actively supporting a circular economy for plastics by implementing deposit return schemes and taxing plastics with low recycled content (HMRC, 2022). All stakeholders need to reduce their carbon footprint, yet brands see a positive PR value in stories associated with plastic reduction, regardless of its impact on climate change. At the same time, the ‘cost of living crisis’ created by external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have put increasing pressure on the needs of the organisation to remain financially stable. My organisation made 400 support centre redundancies in September 2022 and has introduced a culture of cost reduction, making the ability to invest in packaging innovation challenging. Attempting to lead an agenda of plastic reduction when the management focus of the organisation is on cost generates insight into conflicts between management and leadership, which I will explore in the following posts.
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