Providing the whole package: how Wastepack is collaborating with SmartCarbon to help organisations take a more holistic approach to environmental responsibility

Wastepack is a fully registered and approved compliance scheme, supporting more than 1500 organisations from across a wide range of industries to meet UK packaging waste regulations. Through a newly established partnership, Wastepack is encouraging its members to make carbon emissions reporting a priority with the help of SmartCarbon.

 

For more than two decades, Wastepack has provided a comprehensive compliance service to its members. Thanks to a professional but informal and flexible approach, Wastepack guides members through regulatory requirements, leaning on extensive experience within the packaging waste sector.

Alyce Morris, Project Manager at Wastepack, explains,

“Our compliance scheme helps a range of businesses that produce goods in the UK or import from abroad to comply with packaging legislation in the UK,. The Packaging Waste Regulations  came into force back in 1997 and apply across a whole host of industries from retail to manufacturing to importing. Our compliance scheme applies to any organisation with a turnover in excess of £2 million a year, handling more than 50 tonnes of packaging.

“As you can imagine, we are dealing with organisations who are already very conscious of their environmental impact from a landfill and waste perspective. But with targets coming in to achieve Net Zero by 2050, we realised that there is a real opportunity to support organisations further.”

 

While large organisations often have in-house teams managing sustainability initiatives like waste reduction and emissions reporting, Alyce says that all companies can benefit significantly from a tool like the SmartCarbon calculator – particularly those that work within wider supply chains:

“We’ve seen that some small and medium sized enterprises often don’t know where to begin with benchmarking, tracking and reporting on their emissions. But many have expressed their interest in carbon reporting. So, collaborating with SmartCarbon felt like a natural fit for our members.”

 

The new partnership kicked off early in 2023 with an online webinar delivered to Wastepack members. The session outlined the nature of the climate emergency and the importance of carbon emissions reporting; government requirements and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol; and the benefits of carbon reporting and reduction planning in building trust and credibility with other organisations.

 

Alyce says,

“The introductory webinar provided an opportunity for organisations to better understand the implications of their carbon emissions and offer an insight into how the SmartCarbon Calculator could help them to report and plot a course towards Net Zero.

“We’ve already seen a number of our members begin to utilise the platform and we look forward to seeing more organisations adopt the SmartCarbon Calculator over the coming months.”

 

Kimm & Miller is one of the organisations already utilising the platform, having been introduced to SmartCarbon as a result of the webinar. Kimm & Miller’s Sustainability Manager, Sam Kimm, says,

“We found the onboarding session to be very informative and provide us with the direction we needed to start putting plans in place to report on our carbon emissions. The SmartCarbon Calculator is easy to use and provides the guidance we need to collect accurate data from within the business.

“While it’s still early days on our journey towards the creation and implementation of a Carbon Reduction Plan, we’re making good progress and can certainly vouch for the benefits of the platform..”

 

Raising the bar for environmental responsibility

It is a particularly important moment for the packaging waste industry right now with the arrival of the first reform to the packaging waste regulations in 20 years. Through the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), obligated producers will be required to pay the full net cost of packaging through the chain to the end of its life. EPR will also see the introduction of modulated fees on packaging based on its recyclability and mandatory labelling to improve consistency for consumers among other measures.

 

This significant update to the existing regulations will also be supported by a number of other regulations such as the Plastic Packaging Tax, the Deposit Return Scheme, and a clamp down on single-use plastics.

 

In many ways, this mirrors what’s going on in the field of carbon reporting as the responsibilities of businesses and other organisations increase to cover not just Scope 1 and 2 emissions but also Scope 3 emissions to align with the Greenhouse Gas protocol.

 

SmartCarbon Commercial Director, Lee Jackson, says,

“Carbon emissions reporting is becoming a key requirement for UK businesses – particularly those organisations working within broader value chains.

“Wastepack members will already be aware of how important waste management is from both an environmental responsibility and a procurement perspective. And the same applies to reporting carbon emissions.

“The SmartCarbon Calculator makes benchmarking and reporting on carbon emissions simple and straightforward, so that it can easily be incorporated into ongoing business processes and procedures.