Reuse isn’t the future; it’s happening now
This week, the BRC hosted its first breakfast exploring the circular economy, in partnership with Reposit.
Bringing together policymakers, reuse experts, and retailers across the industry, the morning focused on how to overcome challenges and utilise opportunities to scale up reuse across the retail sector. The event featured presentations on the policy landscape for reuse, learnings from successful trials, and current industry initiatives on reuse, and a panel discussion with retail members and industry leaders discussing case studies and learnings for what the path forward for scaling reuse could look like for UK retailers and the wider waste sector.
Find the slides here and read the key takeaways below.
Stuart Chidley, Co-founder of Beauty Kitchen and Reposit provided expert insight into the current and upcoming landscape for reuse, and the business case for moving forward on reuse
- The commercial and sustainability benefits of reuse are clear: Reuse drives commercial value whilst delivering emission reductions and material circularity.
- The industry must focus on a cross-category, cross-sector, cross-nation infrastructure for reuse; separate, siloed infrastructure and processes will stymy system-wide transformation.
- Standardisation is key: Businesses must align on and adopt standardised design principles.
- The evidence base is clear, the pilots prove commercial viability, and the consumers are waiting: retailers and brands must now work together to operationalise reuse at scale.
Case study example: the Canada Reuse City project demonstrates collaborative action between brands, retailers, government, technology providers, and the waste management sector, to successfully scale reuse. Only 20% of the project funding was invested by retailers; the rest came from producers, government grants, and reuse innovators.
Emma Bourne OBE, Director of Circular Economy at Defra provided an overview of the regulatory landscape for a circular economy for packaging, and the pivotal role of reuse
The turning point for reuse is now; it is practical and real change; reuse is and can be embedded in everyday life.
- The transition to reuse is a key enabling feature in the Circular Economy Growth Plan – due to be published in early 2026 – forming a central part of the roadmaps for agri-food, textiles, and electronics.
- Defra is actively supporting the transition to reuse through current and upcoming policy activity:
- Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging (pEPR) provides the financial context and commercial incentive for reuse.
- Defra is working with key industry stakeholders through its on-trade glass reuse working group.
- A reuse call for evidence in early 2026 will gather evidence from industry on how the government can create a supportive policy and investment environment to scale reuse in closed environment settings, on-trade contexts, and grocery retail.
Naomi Brandon-Bravo, Sustainability Policy Adviser at the BRC provided context to the reuse space in retail
The few are leading on reuse, but the many are still trying to understand how reuse fits into their business.
- There is strong momentum for reuse in the grocery space and across packaging categories.
GoUnpackaged’s latest research provided a data-driven view of the commercial and environmental benefits of a 30+% reuse future for UK grocery retail, and infrastructure modelling outlining how to scale reuse systems.
WRAP’s joint statement of intent, signed by nine leading grocery retailers forming the ‘Reuse Packaging Partnership’, outlined the ambition to explore how reusable packaging could be rolled out across their stores.
The BRC’s submission to the Welsh Government consultation on delivering a Deposit Return Scheme in Wales centred on how reuse should be pursued more broadly than drinks rather than as a bolt on to DRS.
- Cross-industry collaboration is essential. We must come together to explore what reuse means for wider sub-sectors and categories.
- How do we communicate the business case for reuse?
- How do we achieve reuse at scale, by moving from individual pilots to a nation-wide system for all categories and sectors?
- There are many different model types for reuse – with options to refill, prefill, or reuse, in store or at home: Which one will work best for retail?
- How do we make reuse easy for the customer?
- The BRC is drafting Reuse Principles for UK Retail, to standardise the sector approach to reuse. Stay tuned for this in 2026, alongside a BRC roundtable bringing together cross-sub-sector retailers on reuse.
James Bull, Head of Packaging and Food Waste Strategies at Tesco introduced the Reuse Packaging Partnership as the Retailer Group’s Chair
- Retailers have a critical role to play in the success of reuse at scale.
- Different pilots conducted by various retailers have provided the evidence base and learnings for how reuse does and doesn’t work in a grocery environment – we must take these and move forward.
- Retailers have discovered prefill is the starting point – the online, direct-to-door, and grab-and-go mechanisms align with existing customer buying behaviours.
- Retailers must align on common design principles to successfully scale reuse. At the core must be an interoperable system between businesses, categories, stores, and kerbside – so customers can buy anywhere and return anywhere.
- The Reuse Packaging Partnership is leading the way for grocery retail. But multi-stakeholder collaboration, with brands and policymakers, is essential to overcoming barriers, unlocking investment, and scaling up.
Panel Discussion: Challenges and opportunities of reuse in retail
What do you see as the potential for reuse in your organisation?
- For retailer representatives Laura Fernandez, Senior Sustainability Manager at Ocado and Lucinda Langton, Head of Sustainability and Packaging at M&S, the commercial, environmental, and reputational benefits are clear: Reuse will be core to achieving internal sustainability targets and strategies, mitigating the significant cost of pEPR, and enabling customers to make the choices they say they want to.
- For Jon Hastings, Chair of the National Association of Waste Disposal Officers (NAWDO), partnership between the waste management sector and retail industry will be key in unlocking the potential of reuse at scale.
- Lowelle Bryan, Senior Specialist on Reuse and Refill at WRAP, highlighted the benefits of collaboration between retailers, brands, government, reuse experts, and system providers.
- Catherine Conway, Director & Policy Lead at GoUnpackaged, noted the strong evidence base for reuse: the question is now not does reuse work at scale, but how can we overcome challenges – set-up costs and infrastructure – to achieve reuse at scale.
What are some recent examples of reuse working or not working in your business?
- M&S gathered plenty of learnings from its various trials: whilst a ‘fill your own’ model did not work operationally or behaviourally, their ‘prefill’ model has steadily improved as customer behaviour evolves and learnings are integrated.
Key learning: Engaging marketing teams is crucial – the refill and reuse offer must be forefront to customer messaging. Effective engagement led to a 69% return rate in M&S’s trial store.
- In an online context, Ocado has gathered extensive learnings from its trials in terms of the categories with the biggest impact (dry household items) and the circular design principles ('functionally ugly’ packaging, clear labelling) that drive the most effective behaviour change. As a result of the pilot’s success, Ocado now includes reuse as part of its standard range and is looking at extending the offering to other product lines and regional areas.
What are the key barriers and opportunities for scaling reuse?
- GoUnpackaged argue that the infrastructure and logistics requirements for a reuse system is not an insurmountable barrier. To scale, industry must lead on system design so that Government can co-design an enabling regulatory framework.
- NAWDO highlighted the pivotal role of Local Authorities and waste service providers in scaling reuse, stressing the need for strong engagement to invest in and adapt facilities.
- WRAP highlighted strong international examples of scaling reuse through industry leadership and government support, such as France using EPR funds. Regulation is a key driver of standardisation, engagement, and scalability, with PPWR in the EU and pEPR and DRS in the UK.
