Starting from 1 January 2024, all establishments selling food or beverages for takeout in Sweden must offer their customers reusable packaging that are part of a rotation process. In a new project, researchers at Service Research Center (CTF) will investigate how to accomplish this.
Researchers will gather knowledge and experiences in order to support the industry — which includes everything from fast food chains, restaurants, cafés, and grocery stores, to event organisers — in switching from disposable to reusable packaging.
– We will contribute with knowledge about how consumers can be encouraged to choose sustainable options and what influences their choices, says Lars Witell, professor of Business Administration at CTF. We will also provide knowledge about how business models can be used to satisfy the needs of all the actors in the reusable packaging ecosystem.
In 2023, a reusable packaging system will be tested during three different events. Beyond testing and evaluating the system, the project will also study and evaluate issues related to the visitor’s perspectives and level of satisfaction, as well as how services and business models can be designed to facilitate cooperation and joint value creation. These are all issues that the CTF researchers will study more closely.
Developing sustainable events
– We are involved in designing new systems, says Lars Witell. We will test our research questions at these events, in order to study how customers behave when they interact with these systems. We hope that this will provide knowledge that will assist the companies in the transition to reusable packaging. This is an important piece of the big puzzle of reducing climate impact of events such as concerts, hockey matches and other kinds of events where many people are gathered.
The research is conducted as part of a demonstration project, led by Chalmers industriteknik, and involves several organisations, of which CTF is one. The objective is to demonstrate how reusable packaging systems can contribute to increased sustainability, reduced littering and lowered sanitation and waste management costs. The project is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, Vinnova and Formas, via the strategic innovation programme RE:Source.
