Drive Sustainability at Scale

Small packaging is the real enemy : sachets and multi-layer films are nearly impossible to collect or recycle economically; PET bottles are actually one of the good guys.

Most waste never gets collected : 2.3 billion people have no collection, making infrastructure the most urgent fix before recycling technology even matters.

Waste-to-energy locks you in : oversized plants create perverse incentives to keep generating waste and undermine recycling efforts.

Technically recyclable ≠ actually recycled : without end-market demand and minimum recycled content regulation, the business case for recycling simply doesn't exist.

Design for the consumer : the simplest thing brands can do is make packaging that people instinctively know how to recycle

Sustainability is fragmenting : Scope 3 moves to procurement, reporting moves to finance, and the CSO role is quietly being demoted.

2026 is still a down year : budgets, headcount, and ambition continue to shrink; don't expect a rebound before 2027.

PCFs are the new baseline : product carbon footprints are becoming standard practice and entering procurement negotiations as competitive leverage.

2030 targets are quietly dying : most were unrealistic from the start; expect accelerating retrenchment through 2029.

Vendor collapse incoming : most sustainability software and consultancy providers are in distress; consolidations and closures will be disruptive for those who rely on them.

Performance beats purpose: mainstream consumers want the product to work first; sustainability is a bonus, not a draw.

Safety is the new sustainability: most consumers hear "sustainability" and think "is this safe for my family?"

The sugar pill works: embed sustainability into the product, drop it from the pitch.

One checkbox is enough — consumers don't want depth, just reassurance that it's not a zero.

Message for the market: safety sells in North America; environmental credentials resonate in Europe and Japan.

‍

EPR is coming fast — municipalities need the money, consumers care about waste, and the political backlash that hit ESG is largely bypassing EPR.

Compliance will be a nightmare — dozens of schemes, different rules, different PROs; a major consolidation opportunity for whoever solves it first.

PRO conflicts of interest are a ticking scandal — waste management companies running waste-reduction schemes is a problem waiting for an exposé.

The real prize is circularity, not compliance — getting packaging back to the original producer to close the loop is where the biggest value lies.

Durable packaging + EPR = less waste into the system — fewer top-ups of virgin material needed if you design for return from the start.

‍

ESG was never designed for operating companies — it started as an outside-in investor checklist and was never meant to become a corporate operating framework.

Clubbing unrelated metrics together is the root problem — there's nothing that connects child labour, water intensity, and emissions under one optimisation logic.

Brand ESG is dead and that's fine — its politicisation, especially on the social side, has made it a liability; losing the label doesn't mean losing what matters.

Fewer metrics, owned by the right teams — water belongs in ops, diversity belongs in talent; sustainability teams should do five things well, not 218 things badly.

Compliance or conviction — pick one — if a metric is just a regulatory requirement, do the minimum; if it's core to the business, treat it as a strategic priority and resource it accordingly.

SECR is backward-looking; UK SRS is forward-looking — the shift from energy usage reporting to risk, opportunity, and transition planning is a fundamental change in what's being asked of businesses.

Sovereignty explains the UK's own version — it's largely IFRS copy-pasted, but the UK won't adopt external rules directly; it never has.

This is partly a professional services play — the UK is positioning its law firms, accountancies, and banks as global experts by shaping the standard early.

Finance teams will own sustainability disclosure — aligning climate and financial reporting together means the CFO's office, not the CSO's, leads on compliance.

Scope 3 finally gets teeth — moving from optional to expected will force businesses to engage with their supply chains in ways most have never done before.

Shadow AI is already here — 90% of companies have employees using personal AI accounts at work, pilots or not.

Most people use AI wrong — Treating it like Google leaves the majority of the value untapped.

Builders beat buyers — Companies that built their own AI tools consistently outperform those that bought off-the-shelf.

Sustainability's natural fit — Unstructured, hard-to-collect data is exactly where Gen AI delivers the most value.

Trust requires testing — Build evaluations (question → expected answer sets) and run them every time your AI system changes.

Greenwashing attacks backfired badly — Campaigning NGOs scared off the very companies voluntarily trying to act, producing green hushing instead of better climate action.

The voluntary market was a fallback, not a plan — South Pole pivoted to voluntary credits out of survival after Kyoto collapsed, not strategic vision.

Perfect is the enemy of impact — Waiting for a flawless carbon credit means never launching a project; imperfect action in hard places still beats inaction.

A government-backed currency could unlock the market — Replacing "carbon credits" with sovereign-endorsed "climate units" could restore corporate confidence to participate openly again.