8. Market—Retailers and Consumers

Chapter 8 highlights the influential role of retailers and consumers—in the development of a circular economy for FMCG packaging. The function of the retail sector as an important dialog partner for end consumers regarding environmental issues relating to products and their packaging is also shown. The experience report of a drugstore retailer on the communicative implementation of its packaging strategy vis-a-vis the end consumer in Section 8.1 allows many conclusions that go beyond the specific packaging area and show how consumer perceptions of sustainability can be influenced in a dialog at eye level. Section 8.2 shows examples of how a retailer can ensure through coopetition initiatives that all of its competing suppliers are using recycled content in their packaging and steadily increase the recycled content. A key requisite for establishing a circular economy for plastics packaging is the monitoring of important attributes such as recyclability and recycled content across the value chain to the end consumer. This requires standardized data models for automated data flows. Section 8.3 shows an example of the development and implementation of such a data flow system. Section 8.4 shows how the retail sector assumes responsibility for the circular economy using the example of one of the world's largest retailers, which has set up its own environmental service provider.