Slashing Plastic Waste for a Global CPG Manufacturer

Case study

To make sustainable living commonplace, a global CPG manufacturer aimed to transform its use of plastic packaging by 2025. Thorogood developed a data platform to provide the insights needed for sustainable growth.

Market context

Sustainability presents a significant challenge for CPG manufacturers. They face scrutiny from consumers, campaign groups, policymakers, and investors who demand transparent and effective sustainability actions. Reliable and timely insights are crucial for manufacturers to identify the right actions and understand their impact, ensuring that sustainability strategies are both substantial and verifiable.

The challenge

This manufacturer, a long-term partner of Thorogood, has a leading sustainability strategy with demanding 2025 targets:

  • 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable plastic packaging.
  • 25% recycled plastic content in all packaging.
  • 30% reduction in virgin plastic by 2026.
  • Collecting and processing more plastic packaging than it sells.

Achieving these goals requires visibility of critical metrics and the ability to quickly derive insights from accurate data. Key questions included the extent of plastic use across brands, the use of post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials, sourcing enough PCR to meet targets, and the cost variations of these processes across regions.

The solution

Thorogood developed a unified data platform and reporting tool to provide accurate and reliable insights into the manufacturer’s performance on plastics. The platform unifies data from internal sources and third parties, providing a single source of truth. It features an intuitive interface that offers clear overviews of essential metrics and the ability to explore granular data by brand, category, or geography, helping identify areas for impactful change.

Accountability was another key consideration. The platform’s audit trail ensures user accountability for updates, ensuring transparency and justifying the reported plastics footprint to external auditing agencies. The manufacturer aims to expand this solution to meet European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).

The right way

Thorogood’s expertise in the CPG sector and data analytics enabled it to deliver a robust solution. The team integrated internal data with third-party data from subject matter experts, combining sector knowledge with data science, engineering, and visualization skills. Using a Delta Lake architecture, Databricks, Azure SQL, Power BI, and the broader Power Platform suite, the solution was tailored to meet the manufacturer’s needs.

The right team, chosen for their expertise in the sector and the customer, included colleagues from India, Singapore, the UK, and the US. Their collaboration resulted in an interactive dashboard that provided stakeholders with valuable insights to take effective action.

The results

Thorogood’s solution resolved three critical issues with the manufacturer’s previous system. The reporting cycle time was reduced from over 67 working days to around 20. The audit trail ensured accountability and improved data accuracy, providing a clear picture of plastic usage.

According to the manufacturer’s 2022 report, it is on track to achieve its 2025 targets. Currently, 55% of its plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable, with 21% of packaging content made from recycled plastic. There has been a 13% reduction in virgin plastic used for new packaging, and 58% of the manufacturer’s annual global plastic packaging footprint is now collected and processed.

Thorogood’s foresight means the system can be easily expanded to assess other materials or new compliance metrics, empowering the manufacturer to make informed decisions and effectively reduce plastic usage.

Find out more

Contact Andy Lazenby.  Andy is a Data & AI Consultant at Thorogood.