• You will be speaking at the Sustainability in Packaging conference in Barcelona. Can you give us a brief preview of what you will be focusing on?

DHL Express started looking at reusable packaging as early as 2018, so we have many years of experience in testing out different processes to implement reusable packaging. Through out these test and year, one thing became very clear: reusable packaging requires a completely different logistics process and environment in order to thrive and be efficient from both the environmental and cost perspective.

During my talk I will present what we have identified as the main challenges to implementing reusable packaging in our logistics processes and how we have managed to overcome most of them with our new reusable packaging solution. I will discuss about the operational processes related to inventory management, retention rate, cleaning and repair, but I will also address the non-operational challenges that come from change management, fear of change and marketing.

• What are the challenges and opportunities in implementing B2B reusable packaging?

Most of the challenges can be divided into operational challenges and non-operational challenges. Most of the non-operational challenges that we are having are not intrinsic to the reusable packaging solution, but are rather connected with the fear of change and disruptive technologies in general.

However, when it comes to the operational challenges, the problem with reusable packaging is that you need to make a completely revolutionary product function alongside and sometime in an interchangeable way with a traditional, archaic solution. The operational challenges of created reusable packaging that is efficient in the current logistics processes for our B2B customers are similar in difficulty with those that you would expect to have if you would require that when inventing the airplane, they would all have to be able to land and take off using normal train rails. These challenges come from the fact that our customers’ and our operations have been developed and improved to ensure that packaging packed in cardboard boxes of a certain quality, thickness, shape and even colour can be packed, shipped and delivered as fast and as easy as possible. Because of these targets, all automation, all processes and all expectations are set around the properties of the cardboard box and its dispensability, the fact that once delivered, it will be processed as waste at the point of delivery.

From the above, it is easy to deduce that the operational challenges are many. From ensuring that the physical properties of the reusable packaging are in conformity or similar to those of the cardboard box, to ensuring that the new added process do not create confusion for employees or overburden our facilities, we need to review, rethink and improve upon every step a reusable packaging is making, while considering the over all environmental impact and user friendliness.

In my talk I will address some of these challenges and how we have overcame them with our new reusable packaging solution.

• What does the future for reusable e-commerce packaging looks like?

In 10 years from now we expect that most e-commerce packaging will be at least designed with recyclability in mind and from higher recycled content materials. We also expect that internal processes related to e-commerce and naturally closed loop processes, for example renting business models or buy -to- test home, will make a shift to reusable packaging. For lower return rates products we hope that our internally developed reusable packaging system where the couriers keep the packaging with themselves at the moment of delivery will become wide spread, to cover at least 20% of all the small and medium size, non DG, e-commerce shipments.

• Which exciting projects is DHL is currently working on?

As mentioned already we are working on 2 reusable packaging solutions. We have a reusable pallet wrap that we are deploying internally for the European movements which is proven to be highly efficient from a waste saving perspective and fast to deploy.

We also have a solution aimed to aid our customers achieve their sustainability goals where we are offering the customer a packaging, a tracking system and a closed loop specially designed delivery process to help make the switch from single use to reuse. With this solution we are offering our customers an agnostic type of packaging, suitable to their product range and a tracking tool to automatically manage the inventory. We receive the products packed into our solution and we deliver them to the consignee. At the moment of delivery we offer only the products to the consignee, while keeping the packaging with us. We bring the packaging back to our facilities and from there we put it again into reuse. Our solution is highly promising on obtaining a good retention rate and environmental impact, without sacrificing the end user experience or over burdening the shipper. The product is still in its infancy and there are many operational and non-operational challenges that we need to overcome, but we are confident that alongside our partners and the end consumers’ change in mentality in 2-3 years it will become an available product to the European market.

• What are you most looking forward to hearing about at this year’s Sustainability in Packaging event?

I am curious to learn about what are the other solutions available or being developed currently on the market with which we could partner. I am looking forward to understanding what are some of the reasons for which some companies might be reluctant to join the reuse revolution and to see whether they are showstoppers or just challenges that we need to overcome.