Planet-Friendly Packaging Solutions with Josh Pittman

And actually, by focusing on how packaging interfaces with the courier network, yeah, that's where you can have the biggest reduction in carbon footprint and emissions.

And hello and welcome to Rethink What Matters, the podcast dedicated to aligning the economy the ecology, and everyone for improved business profitability, stronger families, and a greener planet. And today I'm joined by Josh Pittman of Priory Direct, and we're going to be discussing planet-friendly packaging.

Hi there, thanks very much for having me, Paul.

Brilliant. Thanks again for joining us, Josh. So whether it's natural resource depletion, environmental conservation, waste reduction, pollution and litter, you know, greenhouse gas emissions, microplastic contamination, energy consumption, or climate change mitigation, planet-friendly packaging can really help our cause. So I'm really excited and really pleased to be having this conversation with Josh today. So perhaps, Josh, you could introduce us, please, to yourself and Priory Direct.

Yeah, okay, cool. I'm Josh, I'm Managing Director over at Priory Direct, and we're a sustainable packaging retailer. Essentially, we're on a mission to minimize the impact of e-commerce with a view of making it a truly sustainable industry. And we feel that packaging has a huge part to play there. It's one of the big causes of waste and impact from e-commerce, but it's also because of that one of the huge enablers. In which we can reduce the impact of e-commerce operations. It can make goods handling, goods transport more efficient, and it can reduce a lot of wasted material and downstream waste and pollution that you alluded to there as well. So, and I think all of us are seeing how much packaging is being consumed with distance retail. I think even if you just take a walk down your local street on recycling day, hopefully you'll see quite a lot of recycling bins ready for collection full of packaging materials and And actually, if you look in your normal bin, you know, the vast majority of what's going in there is packaging material. And I think that's why it's a bit of an elephant in the room at the minute. There's a huge amount of discussion to be had around it. And there's also a lot of good that can be done in that space.

Brilliant. I mean, absolutely. And I think it's something which both businesses and end users can think about sort of equally, can't they? Businesses obviously coming to you as your customers, what packaging is the best packaging to use and end users as well. I'm just curious, Priory Direct, is there any story behind the name?

Well, actually, yeah, my, my dad started the business in 1989 in a small priory in Orpington, and that's where Priory Business Group was created. And essentially I started the e-commerce operation for Priory selling labels that match with eBay and Amazon. So an A4 sheet with an address built in, we still sell them and they're a really convenient product for e-commerce sellers. So essentially we supply 21,000 businesses in the UK with their packaging and they range from Sally in her shed with an eBay shop who'll be a sole trader, typically from a residential address, who will be running an e-commerce operation. And you'd be very surprised as to how big some e-commerce operations get from those sorts of situations. You know, we have some customers that turn over well over £1 million from a residential address by selling things online. And their packaging choice is in some ways no less important than those of the bigger retailers. And that ranges up to tier 1, tier 2 retailers like Vivo Barefoot, like H&M, for whom we have an integrated supply chain solution. We help them minimise the impact of their supply chain from end to end. And we manage the inbound supply chain for their packaging and the choices they make around packaging materials. We try and help them inform their operation as to where they can make reductions in waste, wasted time and material, and also reductions of carbon footprint through more efficient choices.

Okay, right, excellent, excellent. So let's just get into some of the challenges then that you and your customers will need to face. Sustainable packaging then, the materials that you're using there, bioplastics and compostable materials, I guess they're more challenging to use as packaging material.

Yeah, I guess inadvertently you've touched on a minefield there, which is bioplastics. And for me, you know, we've got a real kind of a strong view on that. And plastic has taken a huge negative sentiment swing in the consumer's eyes. And there is no doubt about it that we have a material problem with plastic consumption, plastic waste in particular. So the key issue when it comes to plastic is its recyclability and its downstream handling. So for instance, we consume around 600 million— sorry, 600,000 tons of soft plastic LDPE packaging a year in the UK. Right now, of that, 50% is for consumers and 50% is commercial. But the total recycling capacity in the UK for LDPE is around 210,000 tonnes. So at very best, a third of that packaging will get recycled, but only 10,000 tonnes of that capacity is dedicated to the municipal market, to consumers and households. It's all— the rest of it is all industrial. So soft plastics when they end up in consumer hands, don't get recycled. It's a fact, not only because there isn't enough capacity for it, but also because there isn't curbside collection, there isn't an infrastructure available. So in terms of environmental issues, choosing plastic as an e-commerce retailer just is very, very hard to justify because that material will be single use. It's very, very unlikely to end up back into the circular economy to be reused. And so it's an issue. And the reason bioplastics— a lot of people say, oh, well, it's okay because we're using a bioplastic. Well, the truth is that bioplastics are made by growing a monocrop and then converting from ethanol into polyethylene into sugars. There's an awful lot of upstream processing. There's an awful lot of land and water dedicated to making that product. And essentially, without the infrastructure to recapture it and repurpose it, it's no better than using a fossil fuel-based plastic derivative. In fact, the carbon footprint associated with making it is higher than that of a carbon fossil fuel-oriented plastic. So it's a real challenge, that one. And from my point of view, in terms of sustainable packaging, there are environment versus sustainability confusions. And, you know, if you actually monitor just carbon footprint, then in some cases there are perfectly legitimate applications for plastic, but environmentally it's very, very poorly handled by our infrastructure and isn't recycled.

I think sometimes people then probably just have to do what they know is right. You know, maybe the, you know, maybe the green solution isn't as green as everybody thinks, and people just perhaps just got to go with what they know is best, the best thing to do. And that might be, I don't know, the, you know, the, uh, on the face of it, the thing which is less eco-friendly. I'm not entirely sure.

Yeah, we're big advocates actually for paper-based products, you know, paper-based packaging. More than 95% of paper and pulp-based packaging in the UK gets recycled. Yeah, we have some of the highest recovery rates for paper-based packaging products in Europe. We've got great infrastructure there. So the choice is quite simple. There are easy solutions available. And then, you know, they know that they're going to be recycled, recovered. And reuse, and it's curbside available. So it's an easy choice.

I suppose sometimes paper isn't an alternative to plastic.

Well, I mean, the big, the big challenge paper has is it's heavy and bulky, you know, and so there are some big commercial applications where high-volume consumption justifies plastic and based upon a carbon footprint point of view. The big elephant in the room from an e-commerce perspective is that the material choice of packaging pales into insignificance into the footprint of which is, in which is applied. So what I mean by that is if you pack a very small item in a very large piece of packaging, it means you need more vans on the road, more journeys, there's more material to recycle, more collected weight, more shifted weight. And actually, by focusing on how packaging interfaces with the courier network, that's where you can have the biggest reduction in carbon footprint emissions. And really things like final mile drop density, radical consolidation of shipping journeys, and right-sizing packaging, you know, they're hugely more impactful than, you know, choosing one paper versus another or plastic over paper. The plastic debate is really an environmental one. And it's, you know, it's clear-cut. If you want those materials to not do harm, choose ones that biodegrade naturally and/or are readily recycled.

Part of working with you, obviously you'd be discussing that with them. So the functionality then of these sustainable materials, is that also an issue? I mean, do they bend and do they cut and do they fold and do they— you mentioned they're bulkier, so I suppose that's a consideration as well, isn't it?

Yeah, from an e-commerce perspective, actually there are great solutions and there aren't many drawbacks to using paper mailing bags. We've got 2,000 stock products that your average customer and end user could easily make sustainable choices from, and they would fit and apply to the majority of business use cases. We've even done some weird and wacky ones, like we supply a tungsten carbide drill bit manufacturer with a trapezoid cardboard solution with paper strapping on it. Now that's carrying up to like 55, 75 kilos per dispatch. And, you know, these things are drill bits. They're seriously tough bits of kit. And that was one that they were originally using hard plastic casing to send. And actually there was a paper-based solution. It just took a little bit more engineering to get it right.

Where are the trends at the moment regarding people just wanting to use sustainable packaging, its cost or its functionality, because they know their customers want sustainable packaging.

In the past, say, being more sustainable arrow is pointing this way, making more money arrow is pointing this way. And, you know, it was very tough to try and find a journey between the two. Now, in some applications in packaging, you can drive more efficiency and that reduces cost. And so, hey, we're going in the same direction. That works. But nowadays, because consumers are following more conscious brands, because that e-commerce experience is the modern storefront, if I buy from a brand that I aspire to be aligned with, that I really like, and that item arrives in a poorly presented piece of single-use plastic, it can ruin the brand perceived value. And so I think people and businesses in particular are waking up to the fact that consumers will not accept that and that it looks negative on the brand and it damages their brand perception. And so finally, that commerciality and sustainability seem to align, which is very exciting from our perspective. Actually, businesses are having to make ethical decisions that are being driven by the consumer, and that's really exciting.

Yeah, I was going to ask about that actually, touching on a point that you mentioned earlier. What are the policymakers doing? What are governments doing to encourage the use of sustainable packaging?

Yeah, I mean, I'm a big advocate for legislation because I think if you look at businesses, ultimately they often exist to deliver shareholder value.

Yeah.

You know, you are kind of dreaming if you believe that a lot of big businesses are going to take that step. We operate a triple bottom line business, but we're a family owned and run business. We have much tighter attachment to the impact we're having in the world, and I think we're conscious about it. But a lot of businesses aren't going to make that step unless there's legislation or consumer opportunity. So what's actually being done now? There are two things that I think are sort of fairly relevant. One is the plastic packaging tax, and essentially that is a £220-a-tonne levy for any plastic packaging product that is under 30% post-consumer waste. Right now, the majority of plastic packaging can be made up to 80% post-consumer waste. So it's a very small step in, in the right direction. But essentially what it does is starts creating more demand for recycled plastic, which hopefully creates an opportunity for recyclers, creates money into that market, and helps us build a recycling infrastructure. So that's kind of cool. The second one is a scheme called Packaging Recovery Notes, PRNs.

Right.

And that is for every ton of a material a large business uses, they have to buy a recovery note as an extended responsibility for creating that material. And the money they spend on those recovery notes is invested in recycling. And they're only— the notes are only produced every ton of a material that's recycled. So it's a bit hard to wrap your head around, but essentially if you think of supply and demand, the less recycling that's going on relative to the amount of materials being consumed, the less recovery notes there are for the number of tonnes being used, and therefore the price of these goes up really high. And that suddenly means that a lot of money is being generated for recycling businesses for them to invest in infrastructure. In principle, the idea is great. Means that the more recycling you do of a material, the lower cost it is to use that material because there's less friction associated with the, with the PRNs. The big knock-on effect of this is essentially that for businesses that are paying for their PRNs, plastic is much, much more expensive, in the region of £300 a tonne versus paper, which is about £10 a tonne because paper is readily recyclable. So for every tonne of material that that a big business is using, they're actually, if you look at the extended responsibility, the cost of paper is no longer hugely prohibitive over plastic, which it used to be.

That just brings me on to really thinking about certifications and testing. Are there any certifications and testing associated with sustainable packaging?

Yeah, I mean, really more to do with sustainable business practice. So like ISO 14001 is a great one and it's a waste management system and it helps people audit and manage their materials. FSC and PEFC are really reliable markers. So if you're looking for whether that paper has been sourced from a sustainable forest, and what I mean by that is that it's grown as a crop, there's no natural habitat being destroyed in its harvesting, and it's essentially a properly stewarded and managed forest space. So those are great markers. Climate neutral. So the climate neutral marker is a great one. That's an accredited marker that has an application that you have to go through in order to use it on your packaging. One thing that's of interest is that a lot of people think that having printing on packaging, etc., is less recyclable, but from a paper-based product, it makes no difference whatsoever unless it has a laminate. So if you've got a very shiny surface or it's got a plastic laminate applied, Those are the things to look out for.

I did want to ask about that, actually. I've recently heard that, you know, receipts, they've got an ink on there which is quite toxic.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's one of our innovations as well that we're really proud of is we've created BPA-free thermal labels as part of our Pro Elements range. And it's a big story. I'm really glad you asked. So we will have seen BPA-free on drinks bottles. You guys probably have seen that. And the reason we're using BPA-free plastics in our drink bottles is because bisphenol or biphenol is a carcinogenic plastic that emulates estrogen. So it accumulates in the body and it can disrupt our estrogen levels. And essentially all receipts and all traditional thermal labels, which are the address labels you receive your e-commerce goods on, have a BPA coating.

Right.

And that's why you shouldn't really touch or interact with receipts because that bit, that BPA, can be absorbed through your skin.

Right.

But the wider problem with, with e-commerce is that those thermal labels are being recycled with the box they're stuck on. So they get water pulped and then the pulp is filtered out the water and the water is flushed into our waterways containing microplastics and BPA. Right. And essentially that accumulates in our environment. We then start imbibing BPA from the foods we eat, from the water we drink, and all of a sudden cancer rates are going up. We're all having problems with our estrogen levels. So we've created a label that's got a vitamin C coating which naturally biodegrades, oxidizes naturally in nature and doesn't create single-use microplastics.

Just thinking about— so So end users then, let's go with end users to start off with. Is there 2 or 3 things perhaps they should be looking for when they receive a package in the post from Amazon or from wherever it might be to see if the packaging that they've received is planet-friendly?

Okay. So I mean, from my perspective, first pillar is right-sized. Okay. If you've got lots of padding and void fill in there, it's not the right item to be sending that in. And that's, you know, that is a fact. It involves wasted material, but more importantly, wasted space in the supply chain. So is it right-sized? Does it wrap around, conform, or not have loads of padding? Is it recyclable? Is it made of a single material that you can easily recycle yourself? And is it clear for you how to recycle it? If it isn't, then that's not part of the circular economy. The next time that material is going to be needed, we're going to need to make some more of it. So Is it recyclable?

Right.

Okay. And then finally, is it single use? Is it single material? Forgive me, is it single material? So we really try and avoid dual materials. So plastic combined with paper is not so good. So really you want to have a mono-material item so that it is fully recyclable and easy to handle downstream. One thing I would like to say, Paul, is about the triple bottom line nature of PariDirect if I can.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, so I know that a lot of your subscribers are businesses, and there's a couple of things that I think I feel really, really strongly about is about making sustainable choices as a business, but also using your platform as a business as a vehicle for good. And we've launched our charity rewards, our partnership with 1% for the Planet, and our partnership with the Rainforest Trust. Um, all off the back of those ideas, uh, the Rainforest Trust partnership's now protected over 6 million square meters of rainforest.

Okay.

The Priory Elements range are sold in partnership with 1% for the Planet, so 1% of all turnover, not profit, of those items goes to planet-saving charities. Right. And our Charity Rewards gives our customers the ability to give 1% back of everything they spend to one of our 4 charity partners. And in the last 12 months, that's raised over £44,000 for charity. What I would like to impart to your your viewers, your subscribers, you know, your customers is that the loyalty that you can drive through customers that buy into that messaging and fully join you on your journey is worth the investment. And we're just very lucky that our customers and demographic are very aligned with that and go for it. The Rainforest Trust protection that has replaced a free gift at the checkout, it costs the same to us as a business, but it's been immensely positive. And the 1% for the Planet partnership, they're one of the best organizations we've interfaced with. It makes that product more compelling, you know, for all of the smaller businesses that can't afford to brand their own packaging. When they choose Pryor Elements, it talks about it being planet-friendly. It's got the 1% for the Planet marker on there. It shows their customers they've made a sustainable choice.

Okay. All right. Well, that's been such a great insight into planet-friendly packaging, Josh. And how Priory Direct works.

Pleasure, Paul. Thanks very much.

Cheers, then.

Thank you. Bye.

Bye-bye.