European retailer Carrefour has made three new commitments to reduce plastics across its group, addressing plastics in own-brand products and across 10 key categories. It’s also calling on key suppliers to establish plastic footprint reduction objectives.
As early as 2015, Carrefour pioneered a de-plastification approach in its stores, starting with fruits and vegetables, batteries, light bulbs, and textile products. All these actions have resulted in savings of more than 20,000 tons of packaging, particularly plastic packaging, and have helped create market standards, now adopted by most other distributors and national brand suppliers.
“Combating plastic pollution is a critical challenge for our planet,” said Carine Kraus, Executive Director of Engagement of Carrefour Group.
“Through the Act For Food program, launched in 2018, Carrefour led the way in eliminating plastic packaging from its product ranges. Today, we are undertaking new, highly ambitious commitments, engaging the entire value chain in our vision for a plastic-free world.”
Circularity of packaging
The Group’s newest commitments are part of an overall strategy to develop the circularity of packaging.
Carrefour’s commitments comprise:
Remove 15,000 tons of virgin plastic from the packaging of its own-brand products by 2030.
Equivalent to a 10% reduction in the quantity of virgin plastic used in its single-use packaging, this target will be met through consumer-noticeable changes such as deposit schemes for reuse, plastic elimination, and the integration of recycled plastic in packaging.
Implement a strong, measurable, and publicly reported plan to reduce plastic in 10 key product categories where plastic is currently the norm
Carrefour has identified 10 key product categories in which plastic is still too often the standard: shampoo, toilet paper, dishwasher tablets, laundry detergent, toothbrushes, toilet bowl cleaner, writing supplies, pasta, rice, and chocolate bars.
It will implement alternative packaging solutions across these categories, prioritising the reduction and elimination of unnecessary packaging, as well as the use of materials such as paper, cardboard, or recycled plastic.
Carrefour will work with L’Oréal, Sofidel, Unilever, Reckitt, Colgate-Palmolive, S.C. Johnson, Barilla, Bic, and Nestlé on the eco-design of new packaging, ensuring that the solution is tailored to each product.
Require its key suppliers to establish plastic footprint reduction objectives consistent with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Global Commitment principles
To engage its value chain, Carrefour is counting on its Top 100 suppliers to advance deplastification and adopt similar measures for their product packaging as those implemented by the pioneering manufacturers it is working with on the aforementioned categories. For the remaining plastic, the Group will ask its suppliers to implement the Golden Packaging Rules of eco-design defined by The Consumer Goods Forum.
Overall packaging reduction strategy
To track the progress of its action plan in stores, Carrefour is implementing a deplastification index for its key product categories. This index estimates the progress of this transformation on a scale of 1 to 10. For example, the fruit and vegetable section, for which Carrefour initiated deplastification in 2015 and has removed 5,500 tons of plastic, is rated 8/10.
In addition to eliminating plastic, Carrefour is also developing reuse solutions through the deployment of bulk and deposit systems. To date, the retailer has 350 stores equipped with deposit systems and is continuing its rollout in France, as well as in Europe and South America.
