Investa Asset Management Pty Ltd – case study

Background and purpose

Around the world, organisations are paying more attention to sustainability and environmental management. To minimise waste, many office buildings are finding solutions in the circular economy by providing reusable food packaging. Implementing a reuse system for food packaging in office buildings can significantly contribute to reducing plastic waste.

Investa Asset Management Pty Ltd (Investa) is a real estate investment manager. Investa was awarded a Circular Economy Reuse Pilots Fund grant by Sustainability Victoria of $16,360 to apply the Returnr reuse system at 567 Collins Street, a premium office building in Melbourne’s CBD that it manages. Investa also contributed a further $18,855 to deliver the pilot program. The pilot’s aim was to reduce the amount of single use plastics (SUP) used at 567 Collins Street.

"Eliminate SUP @ 567 Collins Street" was launched on 31 October 2022 and ran until 31 March 2023. Its objective was to have 4,600 users, from 20 tenancies, in the building, per month, switch from disposable to reusable containers for their food and drinks bought while at work. There are 9 retailers on site that participated in the program.

This pilot also tested and observed the building community’s willingness to use returnable containers ahead of the Single-use plastics ban on 1 February 2023.

The program

A pre-pilot audit was done on 14 September 2022 by Recycle Smart Consulting with Investa and Foresight Environmental, to provide a base line and average weight per single use plastic item (food and beverage containers) as well as the average organic waste per food container found in the building’s waste streams.

Each tenancy in the building was given a Returnr set (a total of 28 kits were distributed). The program was launched with a 50% discount on food and drinks served at participating 567 Collins Street retailers on 31 October 2022.

Stakeholder engagement with all of the building’s retailers and tenancies was crucial to the success of the pilot. The collaboration with the building cleaning contractors, Consolidated Property Services ensured consistent data collection across the various organisations and platforms housed in the building. Investa conducted workshops, pilot demonstrations, consulted retailers, and implemented washing and redistribution of the containers.

It was important to be able to compare usage rates of the cups and containers with what was happening in the waste streams, so data was collected and recorded on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. This ensured accuracy and provided context for change in behaviour.

To launch the campaign, the team created marketing and information materials. They could be found at the building’s concierge desk, in the office building’s lobby, at retail points of sale, in tenancy (office) kitchens, and in retail dining booths.

"Eliminate SUP @ 567 Collins Street" was also promoted by email to 567 Collins Street occupants. These communications provided updates on the pilot’s progress, that is how much single use plastic had been avoided since the start of the campaign as well as notifying occupants about upcoming incentives or reminders to use the Returnr kits throughout the pilot period.

The program team also met one-to-one with retailers to confirm that the building management and the onsite team would be available to support them during the program and in the future.

The impact

At the end of March 2023, 15,307 single-use cups and 19,491 single-use containers were avoided.

A waste audit at the conclusion of the pilot also revealed that single-use cups found in waste streams had reduced by an impressive 9% and food containers by a staggering 45% (as a rate per 100 people, taking into consideration changing occupancy rates over the 5-month period).

In addition to the waste avoided, it is estimated that “Eliminate SUP @ 567 Collins Street” has directly contributed to a 5% increase in overall organics recycled, where we have seen the organics recycling rate increase by more than double due to the implementation of more organics bins and increased education on the importance of keeping food waste out of landfill.

Challenges

Some retailers were concerned about keeping count of re-usable containers and payment terms for reimbursing the 50% off offer in a timely manner. Investa was able to meet the capabilities and needs of each retailer so they could participate in the pilot. It was done by consulting closely and regularly with each retailer, and understanding their specific needs.

Investa held targeted meetings with the tenants to talk through tenancy-specific requirements in more detail, particularly with tenants who needed to add additional organics waste streams or who engaged a separate cleaning contractor to ensure consistency in how data was collected.

Adopting a new behaviour (using the Returnr containers) worked well while the 50% discount launch deal was active. But once it ended, the use of the Returnr containers dropped and then picked up again with the introduction of new incentives and reminders.

The ongoing challenge will be how to keep momentum up without incentives that are as generous, which are not feasible long term. One possible solution is to use the infrastructure that is now in place to provide new and innovative incentives, aligned with other occupant experience activations throughout the year – for example a promotion linked to Plastic Free July or National Recycling Week.

Capturing accurate data:

All stakeholders worked together to capture data in a uniform manner. A simple tally system was set up in each kitchen for the cleaning team to count all the clean cups and food containers that came out of the dishwashers. At the end of each month, the data was collated and combined into a Power BI Data portal for analysis by Foresight Environmental.

In addition, the success of promotional efforts was counted via POS reports and receipts produced by participating retailers.

This data was then overlayed with occupancy data provided by Investa’s internal Research Team and waste data collected as part of Consolidated Property Services daily scope and waste audits undertaken by Recycle Smart Consulting.

Observations and next steps

There was a large difference in the number of containers counted by tenancies and retailers. Tenancies showed a higher use rate, implying that the occupants used reusable containers to buy food outside of the building, which was very encouraging.

As a result of this pilot, many people started to bring their own containers, contributing to Investa’s efforts to reduce waste.

Some tenancies have leveraged this initial effort to expand their own path to zero waste and have enquired about further education on using waste streams correctly, how they can minimise waste and implementing the use of a reusable container system within their workplaces.

The 567 Collins Management team has responded to tenants’ requests by arranging a Waste Expo and will report back to tenants the final results and impact of the pilot. Investa is also now looking to expand similar programs into other buildings it manages.