WEF – Scaling Reuse Models, 2023

The World Economic Forum's Consumers Beyond Waste (CBW) initiative has been working with leading consumer companies and non-profit organizations since early 2022 to create standardized guidelines for measuring reuse. The aim is to prevent fragmentation in target-setting and measurement approaches, which could slow down the widespread adoption of reuse. In 2022, a preliminary version of the guidelines was published, including two priority metrics, parameters, and calculation examples. In 2023, the guidelines were tested by select companies in the working group in real-world settings, and based on the testing outcomes and contributions from the working group, the guidelines were refined throughout the year. In 2024, the working group will focus on collaborative capacity building and reaching convergence on areas with divergent stakeholder perspectives. The white paper serves as a status report that will be improved over the coming year, with the ultimate goal of these measurement guidelines becoming the accepted standard for all stakeholders, accelerating the adoption of reuse models at scale. The white paper is targeted at corporate stakeholders in the consumer goods and retail sectors interested in exploring new reuse models, policy-makers and standard-setters looking to measure progress on reuse, and other ecosystem actors interested in understanding standardized reuse measurement. The document provides a summary of three areas: reuse measurement parameters and definitions, reuse metric prioritization and piloting outcomes, and calculation models and measurement approaches. The working group consists of companies such as Amcor, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Walmart, and organizations like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Greenpeace, TerraCycle, and the World Wildlife Fund. The CBW community refers to all stakeholders involved in the initiative, and the World Economic Forum is the organization convening the CBW multistakeholder community.