What does it mean to be a B Corp in the packaging recycling world? | Ecosurety
Ecosurety
Accelerate change
What does it mean to be a B Corp in the packaging recycling world?
Ecosurety has been a purpose-driven business since its inception 22 years ago. As we’ve expanded in size and influence, the B Corp framework has guided us in channelling our efforts effectively.
When we decided to pursue the B Corp certification, our goal was to enhance our sustainability journey and use our business as a force for good. We aimed to ensure the wellbeing of our staff, engage with our local community, and protect our environment.
In 2020, we were proud to become the first B Corp Certified Packaging Compliance Scheme in the UK.
Our journey with B Corp
Five years later, with a re-certification under our belt, B Corp has significantly improved our operational impact.
Team receiving the Carbon Literate Organisation Silver Status
Here are some examples of actions we've implemented. We have:
Revised our company’s purpose from ‘Change for good’ to ‘Accelerate change towards an environmentally and socially sustainable world’. We’ve also introduced a focused mission: ‘to rid the world of unnecessary packaging’.
Monitored our CO2e emissions and set science-based targets to reduce our carbon footprint and achieve net zero by 2030.
Achieved Carbon Literate Organisation Silver status, by training over one hundred individuals, including employees, customers, and suppliers. This training helps them understand the impact of carbon in daily life and empowers them with the confidence and motivation to reduce their carbon footprint.
Enhanced our employee benefits package by introducing a health cash plan, providing access to free counselling sessions, and offering a variety of wellbeing activities to keep us motivated and connected with one another.
Provided each employee with three volunteering days per year, allowing us to support causes that are meaningful to us within our communities.
Promoting industry-wide change
The Fixy Project - a project funded via the Ecosurety Exploration Fund
The B Corp framework encourages us to extend our impact beyond our organisation by improving the sustainability of our wider industry. Whilst we’re proud to lead by example by improving our own sustainability, we believe that if we use our passion and influence to tackle some of the significant issues in the packaging recycling industry, there is huge potential for change.
Over the past ten years, we have actively addressed the most pressing challenges facing the recycling industry. We've championed improvements in the PRN market, created numerous recycling awareness campaigns, and fostered regular collaboration between packaging producers and reprocessors. Additionally, we launched a £1 million fund over three years to support projects addressing e-waste, batteries, and packaging's environmental impact.
Continuously evolving for greater positive impact
The Ecosurety team
To ensure our efforts continue to be as impactful as possible, we conducted a double materiality assessment, considering the business's impact on people and the planet, as well as the impact of people and planet on the business. We sought feedback from stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, packaging and product manufacturers, as well as consumers.
The feedback from our stakeholders1 on our impact has been encouraging:
86% think Ecosurety positively impacts people and the planet
94% think it's important for Ecosurety to continue improving its impact
Some common themes of suggestions also came out of interviews with our stakeholders:
Pushing for genuine progress on recycling: ensuring the integrity of the PRN system and supporting the expansion of national recycling capacity.
Stimulating collective action for a more circular economy: facilitating industry collaboration and being a trusted source of information.
Empowering our clients to make positive packaging change: by leveraging our data analytics and expertise.
Our impact framework
Drawing from these insights, we developed our new impact framework, to demonstrate a positive impact to our stakeholders, in alignment with our purpose. This framework is built upon three key pillars:
1. Influence better packaging being placed on the market
We will help brands use more recyclable packaging with higher recycled content and reduce single-use packaging by:
Supporting them with data insights and advisory services for better packaging strategies
Monitoring and improving the proportion of certified recyclable packaging of our member base
Driving industry collaboration for scalable change.
2. Drive an increase in quality recycling
We will influence an increase the volume of packaging being recycled, as well as an increase in the volume of circular recycling by:
Investing PRN funds to expand recycling infrastructure.
Supporting innovation in recycling technology through PRN investment and brand partnerships.
Leading consumer awareness campaigns and collaborative initiatives.
3. Drive the adoption of reusable packaging
We will influence an increase in long-term adoption of reusable formats by:
Creating groundbreaking reuse initiatives to demonstrate scalable commercial models
Providing advisory services to help clients adopt reusable packaging
Bringing industry partners together to drive truly scalable reuse systems where reuse is the default choice for shoppers, retailers, and brands.
We are thrilled about our impact framework and its integration with our core business strategy. By sharing its content externally today, we aim to hold ourselves accountable.
The Global Reuse Summit 2025
In the first quarter alone, we've already made significant strides, such as collaborating with City to Sea on the Global Reuse Summit and supporting the Talking Rubbish podcast to raise recycling awareness. We have many more exciting projects in the pipeline that we can't wait to talk about.
Our commitment to accelerating change towards an environmentally and socially sustainable world is stronger than ever. Our mission remains steadfast: to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. We will continue to pursue this goal, one step at a time.
If you’d like to discuss any of the areas, or explore how you can support our objectives, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us today at info@ecosurety.com
1 45 individuals, including employees, recyclers, consumers, packaging manufacturers, product manufacturers and PRN traders.
by Steph Housty
Head of Sustainability and Marketing
27 March, 2025
In addition to shaping the marketing and communication strategy, she is in charge of moving up the dial on Ecosurety’s social and environmental impact by driving the sustainability strategy.
