ESG Outlook is Sourcing Journal’s discussion series with industry executives to get their take on their company’s latest environmental, social and governance initiatives and their own personal efforts toward sustainability. Here, Carly Snider, executive director of Pact Collective, explains why the industry can’t recycle its way out of its packaging problem; it must address packaging from a design perspective at the start of the supply chain.
Name: Carly Snider
Title: Executive Director
Company: Pact Collective
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In 2023, the beauty and wellness industry achieved global retail sales of $446 billion, spurring an increase in beauty packaging production valued at over $33 billion. And while more than 75 percent of U.S. consumers prioritized perceived sustainable packaging for cosmetics in 2023, only a fraction of the 120 billion beauty packaging units produced annually are recycled. Traditional curbside recycling systems cannot process most beauty packaging due to design, which is often too small, too flexible or made of too many different material types.
Known for its hard-to-recycle beauty collection programs, Pact, a nonprofit collective founded by Credo Beauty and MOB Beauty in 2021, unites the beauty industry to reduce packaging waste and drive toward more circular solutions. The organization is comprised of 145+ beauty organizations (retailers and brands like Sephora, Ulta, ILIA and True Botanicals, plus packaging suppliers, media, and nonprofits) that leverage pre-competitive collaboration.
What do you consider your company’s best ESG-related achievement over the last 5 years?
Our best achievement is uniting our 145+ members under one common goal and industry-wide action. We’ve seen many brands try to tackle our industry’s packaging problem individually, but we just haven’t seen the same success we’ve seen with Pact Collective and our pre-competitive approach. By working together, pre-competitively, we’ve collected and helped divert almost half a million pounds of hard-to-recycle beauty material from landfills. Together as an industry, we can take actionable steps that will accelerate our impact and get us where we need to be faster.
We offer hard-to-recycle beauty collection programs to divert this packaging from landfills while advocating for smarter packaging design across the beauty supply chain. At Pact, diversion is not enough; we need to learn from our waste, especially what’s the hardest to recycle, to make better and more informed packaging decisions in the future.
What is your company’s latest ESG-related initiative?
NewMatter™ is our latest initiative that transforms hard-to-recycle beauty packaging collected via Pact’s collection programs into materials that can be used again within the beauty industry. This initiative aims to keep beauty packaging waste out of landfills by repurposing the waste to create closed-loop, industry-wide solutions.
Pact launched NewMatter™ by developing a 100 percent recycled polypropylene (PP) resin from hard-to-recycle beauty material collected through Pact’s collection programs in the US/Canada and ocean-bound plastic sourced in Malaysia. Without this initiative, these materials would likely have been discarded in landfills, incinerated or contributed to ocean pollution.
To prove the viability of the resin, Pact and clean beauty retailer/founding member Credo Beauty collaborated to produce a pump made from NewMatter™ 100 percent recycled content PP.
Traditionally, pumps are difficult to recycle due to their mixed materials and small format, which often lead to a higher reliance on virgin plastic than other beauty components. Together, Pact and Credo Beauty aimed to prove that a more sustainable pump is achievable. The result is the first-of-its-kind beauty-to-beauty mono material PP pump made of 83 – 84 percent NewMatter™ resin, significantly reducing the use of virgin plastic and creating a better end-of-life outcome due to its composition.
Once the customer has finished using the pump, they can drop it off or mail it back via Pact’s hard-to-recycle beauty collection programs, where it will be properly recycled through Pact’s PP stream. Notably, every 38 pumps used helps eliminate 1 pound of hard-to-recycle material from landfill or ocean pollution. If we can achieve this in just 3 years, the sky’s the limit when we work together as one industry with a common goal!
What is the biggest misconception consumers have about sustainability in beauty/wellness?
The ‘recycling is broken’ narrative. Recycling isn’t broken, it’s been a neglected industry that we’ve “kitchen sinked” all of our problems and poor design decisions into. We aren’t designing for existing recycling infrastructure. We’re designing with unnecessary labels, excess packaging and low-value materials, and expecting our manufacturers and recyclers to “figure it out.” We want to make our manufacturers’ jobs easier by designing with high-value materials that we know they can recycle better and work with specialty programs like Pact for material that can’t be recycled traditionally, ultimately getting it into the hands of people who can process it properly.
We aren’t going to recycle our way out of the problem, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon the system altogether. It’s an important part of a multi-facilitated approach to move toward circularity. Other levers include responsible consumption, material reduction and refill/reuse.
Pact hopes to see a day where our hard-to-recycle collection program is no longer needed and we’re creating material that can be recycled curbside when necessary or reused again and again.
Regarding recycling, how to help shrink the gap between what consumers want to do and what they actually do?
First, recycling is very complex. Our recycling system is so fragmented that we have different items acceptable for recycling that change zip code to zip code. On top of that, beauty packaging makes it even more complicated due to the small format, decorations/labels that impact true recyclability even though the vessel material is “recyclable,” and more. Furthermore, if brands can’t communicate disposal instructions clearly or correctly, we run into more confusion and misinformation.
That’s why consumer education is critical. We’re more than just a collection bin on a retailer’s floor. We provide detailed education to everyone who plays a role in the consumer’s journey to dropping off their beauty packaging. We train store associates, we audit store performance, and we speak directly to consumers to help them understand how to properly use the bin. All of these tactics have helped us collect this material and keep our contamination rates (meaning trash that ends up in the bin or beauty packages that haven’t been cleaned out) really low.
Packaging sustainability has no industry-wide certifications. What type of tools and resources does Pact provide to help the industry make better choices around packaging design?
The lack of standardization is one of the reasons Pact exists! If we can at least standardize across the beauty industry, that will have a huge impact. This is why our focus on education is so important, and it’s also why our collection programs are brand-agnostic. The consumer can drop off any beauty package at any of our 3,300+ bin locations across the U.S. and Canada. They don’t have to have purchased it at their drop-off location. This was intentional, and trains the customer based on their habits (the average customer is not buying exclusively from one brand). This has helped us see higher adoption rates and more successful programs.
It might sound counterintuitive, but does recycling progress provide a false sense of security that hampers more thoughtful and sustainable design?
Yes! We are very vocal in our belief that recycling is only one tool in the toolbox; we cannot recycle our way out of this packaging problem. We must address this from a design perspective at the start of the supply chain. That’s why Pact is not just a collection program. We’re a membership organization that provides resources, design tools, and more to ensure that we are creating packages that don’t need to come to Pact, or can be used again and again in a refill model. We need both approaches to have real impact.
What do you consider to be the beauty/wellness industry’s biggest missed opportunity related to securing meaningful change?
Continuing to approach sustainability as a marketing strategy for their brand or as a brand-specific problem, rather than the urgent industry-wide problem it is. We can compete on everything except sustainability, which has to be a joint venture if we are going to create the change we need for our planet. Sustainability and circularity are bigger than one brand – coming together and with industry-wide solutions is our superpower to accelerate impact.
What is your personal philosophy on shopping for beauty/wellness items? How do you try to minimize the environmental impact of the products you buy?
One, say no to single-use or travel size. I always look for bulk options where the material is not small format so the bottle can be recycled curbside. Two, opt for a simple design where the packaging uses the same material (known as a monomaterial). I am very weary of metallized plastic, oversized caps and adding packaging to make the unit feel heavy. These are all climate killers and are very prominent in beauty. Three, opt for packaging with a high percentage of PCR or recycled content. Not only does this mean material is getting used again but it increases the demand for more recycling, leading to better investments in collection, sorting and processing.
Lastly, I am looking for a refill model that leverages primary packaging like glass or metal for the reusable vessel that is refilled by products sold in recyclable pouches or containers. Note these packages need to come to Pact as they are not recyclable curbside. Glass is very heavy compared to plastic, meaning it has a higher carbon footprint. But used in a refill model it is a perfect application because it’s only shipped to the end user once, but used again and again.
Anything new you are doing to boost sustainability beyond the beauty/wellness industry?
Keep it local! I live in a small mountain community in Colorado, where we frequently exchange furniture and clothes. Facebook Marketplace has been my go-to for furnishing my home. I’ve also started creating some items on my own! Right now, I’m focused on candle making, and I hope to create my own homemade essential oils from the wildflowers I plan to grow in my garden.
