At ZALORA, we put a strong emphasis on packaging since we are conscious that our e-commerce activity has a significant impact across our whole supply chain to ship and deliver products from our vendors all the way to you !
This is an even greater priority that the environmental impact of packaging is the top sustainability issue of concern for our customers, in markets where we know that they do not always have access to waste sorting and recycling facilities
This is an even greater priority that the environmental impact of packaging is the top sustainability issue of concern for our customers, in markets where we know that they do not always have access to waste sorting and recycling facilities
ZALORA'S PACKAGING JOURNEY
Where did we start ? Toward a more sustainable delivery packaging !
And it's just the beginning !
ZALORA's plastic delivery flyers are our first visible impact facing customers, which we prioritized in 2020 by transitioning the flyer composition to a more sustainable material, choosing to use recycled plastic materials rather than virgin plastic
Operations teams have been working for several months in 2020 to develop a more sustainable alternative to the current plastic flyer packaging used across all countries to deliver our customers, by identifying a local Malaysian-based packaging vendor able to supply pre-consumer waste recycled plastic. Without compromising on our quality, cost and logistic requirements, we have been able to transition all plastic flyers delivering Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan customers to 80% of recycled plastic content. Our other Operations countries, Indonesia and Philippines, will also roll-out this solution early 2021.
This initiative both reduces significantly the overall environmental impact of our delivery flyers while nurturing a demand for such alternative materials in a country where the waste recycling industry and use of recycled material is at an early stage.
If there is no difference between recycled and virgin plastic, how can I know this packaging is really made of recycled material ?As transparency is one of our core commitments, we collaborated with our packaging vendor to engage them in a certification process through the Recycled Content Standard (see website). This third party certification provides ZALORA and its customers the insurance of the recycled content by verifying the traceability of the material along the supply chain. We are very thankful that our packaging vendor joined us into this sustainability journey, and proud of their certification achievement that also illustrates our commitment to shape our sustainable ecosystem, bringing along our key partners.
We are now focusing our efforts to transition cardboard, representing 70% of our Operations packaging, to more sustainable materials. To address ZALORA’s impact across all our supply chain, we do not only focus on our Operations, but we also work collaboratively with our Private Labels brands’ vendors to replace polybags, the transparent plastic protection used to ship every single item, to 100% of pre-consumer recycled plastic. As of now, most of our Private Label vendors have transitioned to this new packaging, and we will expand our eco-design efforts next year to cardboard shipping boxes and hand tags.