Planet Reuse launches in Berlin, on the 9th of September.
The Hague, September 2022. While many reusable packaging initiatives are being developed and tested in various sectors, wide-spread and scaled implementation is still lacking. A team of reuse enthusiasts have now, in a co-creation process with a broad range of stakeholders, developed a digital platform and network for reusable packaging. The vision: facilitate the implementation and scaling of reuse models. After more than one year of work, Planet Reuse is going live during a major reusable packaging event on September 9th, 2022.
While reusable packaging has existed for decades for beverages and transport packaging, it has only been in recent years that hundreds of reuse solutions have been developed and brought to market in Europe for new applications, such as eCommerce, take-away food and beverages, prepared food and personal care products. Wide-spread and scaled implementation, however, is still lacking.
Therefore, in summer 2021, some reuse enthusiasts across Europe met and discussed how the transition from single-use to reusable packaging could be accelerated. The idea: increase the visibility of reuse solutions and improve the access to knowledge and tools that support decision-making and implementation of reuse models. In the months that followed, the idea matured: The real added value would lie in bringing professionals together to learn with and from each other, and to enable cooperation and collaboration among those professionals.
Marcel Keuenhof, packaging expert at the Netherlands Institute for Sustainable Packaging (KIDV), and co-initiator of Planet Reuse, is convinced the platform “will help accelerate the implementation of reusable packaging on a European level.” Also for other leading European organisations and experts, such as Nathan Dufour, Consumption & Production Programme Coordinator at Zero Waste Europe, the platform is a much needed initiative at the right timing: “I am very happy to support this great initiative that is Planet Reuse, filling a very important gap in the awakening of European reuse ecosystem”.
In early 2022, the team around Planet Reuse found a suitable partner in Innoloft GmbH to translate this idea into an actual product. Over the course of the past six months, a digital platform with various functionalities has been developed along with two dozen beta users to ensure that the platform provides the added value that various users will be looking for. For them, Planet Reuse is “a great tool to get inspiration, increase their visibility, acquire new clients and stay updated on the latest trends in the reusable packaging sector”. Next to a reuse solutions database and a knowledge space, the platform includes features such as a database with supplies and services around reuse, an event section with internal and external events, a forum, working groups and a space for closed communities as well as a messaging function.
Planet Reuse launches September 9
In context of the 25th anniversary of the Stiftung Initiative Mehrweg, Planet Reuse will now officially launch in Berlin on September 9, 2022. For Dr. Jens Oldenburg, managing director of SIM, it was self-evident to offer Planet Reuse a stage: “Our event is all about being a platform for sharing and discussing new ideas and impulses and providing a basis for further collaboration among various stakeholders.” With the official launch, Planet Reuse is now open for all professionals interested in topics related to reusable packaging.
With the technical part of the platform being ready and functional, the process of community development will now come to the fore. In the coming months, the focus – together with strategic partners like Zero Waste Europe, KIDV, Stiftung Initiative Mehrweg and Circular Futures, will be on expanding the community to several hundred platform users. By summer 2023, the platform should have become the space where professionals meet regularly, find the latest news and solutions around reusable packaging, and collaborate on topics such as standardisation, physical and digital reverse logistics infrastructure for reusables, or the development of an assessment tool to compare single-use versus reusable packaging options.
For more information, visit Planet Reuse.