'There is a lot of money to be made with sustainability'

In the run-up to the Empack on 12-14 April in the Jaarbeurs, VerpakkingsProfs interviews the show's speakers. What can you expect from their presentations? This episode Margreeth Pape from Thuiswinkel.org, sector organisation for online retail.

Can you tell us something about yourself?
I am a policy advisor on logistics and sustainability at Thuiswinkel.org, the sector organisation for online retail. As policy advisor, I deal with all trends and developments in the field of logistics and sustainability. I represent the interests of online retailers, bring the right people together and initiate various projects. Packaging is an important topic for both logistics and sustainability.

What are you doing to make the e-commerce sector more sustainable?
As an industry organisation, we help webshops integrate sustainability into their processes. In the field of packaging, we are working with various packaging suppliers to gain insight into the latest developments in sustainable packaging, we have set targets to reduce the environmental impact of shipping materials and will soon launch the results of a study on best practices in sustainable packaging materials. All this to help webshops and step further towards the application of sustainable shipping materials.

It is important for every organisation to take responsibility for the environmental impact resulting from its operations. The underlying motivation to work sustainably can be different for each organisation. Of course, we prefer to see companies collaborate on becoming sustainable from a sense of responsibility, but there is also a lot of money to be made with sustainability.

How do you mean?
There are several solutions to this. Process optimisation often not only yields environmental gains, but is also commercially interesting. To take packaging as an example: 250 million parcels are sent every year. These often come in plastic or cardboard boxes. Currently, many parcels are still sent with empty space in the packaging. Of course, this is harmful for the environment, but also for an online shop's wallet. Those who use a smaller box need less material and can fit more boxes into a van, which saves money and time.

In doing so, I must say that this is a problem that cannot be solved very easily. In the context of packaging, this is one of the most thorny issues in the market. Nowadays you can order almost anything online, and a broom and a DVD are not easy to pack together. It would be best if there were one generic, affordable, box for the whole sector, but I haven't found that solution yet.

What can people expect from your presentation at Empack?
We commissioned research into the market and from this we wanted to create an overview of what is going on in terms of innovations and developments. There are also a lot of new insights from packaging materials. We had all this mapped out and we will present the results at Empack. This way, we have compiled the latest insights and innovations, which we can easily share with our members.

By doing so, we also try to give people a tangible handle for those who want to take a step in the sustainable direction. What is necessary if you want to work more sustainably and how do you do it? How do you start and what do you all need to pay attention to? Thuiswinkel.org aims to help members to look further. By providing information on sustainable packaging, we can help webshops move forward.

What else does Thuiswinkel.org do for the industry?
We have four pillars. Consumers know us mainly through our Thuiswinkel Waarborg Hallmark. The quality mark, which a webshop can only obtain after passing our certification, stands for safe and reliable online shopping. In addition, we do a lot of research into the growth of e-commerce and developments in this field for the Dutch and international market.

With the E-academy, we build a bridge between education and business. We find that e-commerce is often behind the times and not yet woven into the curriculum. We are trying to improve that. We also do advocacy work, representing the interests of webshops to governments and market players.

Curious about Margreeth'sand other presentations? Free registration for the Empack can be done here.