Case Study

Ideal Standard’s Path to Sustainable Packaging

As a manufacturing business, packaging is an inevitable part of what we do. We create beautifully designed, precision-engineered products and we want them to arrive with the end user in perfect condition. For decades now, plastic and cardboard have been standard elements in packaging but only in recent years has industry realised how important it is to change that. Read on to find out how we took the first steps on our journey to reducing our impact on the environment by changing our approach to packaging.

What we did

Ideal Standard is dedicated to promoting the circular economy using recyclable and sustainably sourced materials wherever feasible. Authenticity is key for us and we are only implementing strategies and solutions that drive real change. For example, switching from plastic to cardboard is not always more sustainable if the cardboard isn’t sourced from an environmentally responsible manufacturer. And many products which are labelled as biodegradable will only break down more quickly if heated to a certain temperature for several weeks in an industrial composting facility. Otherwise, they take hundreds of years to biodegrade in landfill. We wanted to avoid these kinds of quick and easy changes and instead do something with real impact.
We also felt that the international standard for labelling packaging as made from recycled materials set the bar too low, whereas our ambition is to aim high. At the same time, we wanted to move fast, rather than having a phased approach over several years. Our starting point was to understand how much plastic and cardboard we use, which, as a large and complex business, has been and continues to be an enormous task, involving more than 4,000 components within our ceramics and fittings categories alone. We have also spoken to leading global packaging companies about how they see the future of what they do before taking immediate action where possible and setting out a number of commitments over the medium term.


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The Process: We asked ourselves.
1. Do we really need that packaging? 
2. If yes: Can we use recycled materials?
3. If no: Can we use COC (Chain of Custody) accredited materials?

The outcome

Our progress so far and future commitments include: 
• In 2019, we converted to 75% recycled plastic pallet bags, which has led to a reduction in virgin plastic consumption of 715,000kg since implementation. We are now pushing this further by testing 80% recycled plastic pallet bags.
• By July 2022, we had replaced all shrink wrap on ceramics products with either bare ware or boxed packaging options, removing a further 70,000kg of plastic per year.  
• We have started the process of removing all plastic bags from our fittings packaging. So far, the initiative to transition away from single use plastic bags is worth 5.2 million bags per year. That means 10 tonnes of single use plastic will exit our supply chain and be replaced by sustainable materials, such as recycled paper. 
• While we are proud of this first step, we are committed to the removal of all single-use plastic in our fittings and ceramic packaging in 2023 and plan to eliminate single use plastic packaging in any remaining product categories by 2025.
Where using more sustainable alternatives for individual products is not feasible, we are implementing high-grade recycled plastic products, with the plastic used created from minimum 51 per cent recycled material, far higher than many national standards of 30 per cent. The new packaging has been rigorously tested to guarantee there are no adverse effects on the products, making sure they are delivered without damage.
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Our ethos throughout this process has been to ensure we are committed to making changes that will have a genuine, positive environmental impact. For example, switching from plastic to cardboard can actually have a negative impact because cardboard manufacturing results in more carbon emissions. 
“We have taken time to understand our impact on the environment and how we can change our packaging for the better, only working with responsible manufacturers with transparent and ethical supply chains. When we can’t use recycled cardboard, we are requiring that all virgin cardboard is COC (Chain of Custody) certified to ensure it is sourced from sustainably certified supply chains. Although we are proud of what we have achieved so far, we have work still to do and will continue improve our practices as the technology develops.”
Jan-Peter Tewes, joint CEO Ideal Standard International 


What’s next?

We know that if we want to make real change we also need to educate and support our suppliers to help them unlock new sustainable methods of packaging components from toilet seats to waste kits. We look forward to sharing our progress on these and other sustainable solutions in the near future.