Human progress has always been a story of vision, curiosity and the need to survive. One of the defining challenges of our century — and a condition for surviving it — is the shift from wasteful societies to more sustainable living. Waste from everyday consumer goods (food, household products, beauty) creates a long list of problems for the companies behind them: brand-image erosion, legal and reputational risk, and consumers who increasingly judge business on its ethics.

Building a less-plastic future asks industry leaders to let linear and circular models coexist in how products are made and marketed. Reuse and deposit-return schemes — where packaging comes back for a small fee, or is cleaned and recirculated by producers — can help deliver that future. But it will take political will, investment that tolerates a longer view on ROI, and genuine perseverance. For now, progress stalls, because stakeholders are stuck in a blame cycle: who should do more to enable the transition — governments, consumers, retailers, producers or innovators?

Reuse-based new product development (NPD) is exactly the kind of circular innovation that cuts waste by creating new consumer behaviours. But it demands a new approach to marketing, education and training — and a shift in how producers frame sustainability, away from the classic ‘consumer needs’ paradigm toward a more plant-positive agenda.

Scaling reusability comes down to three things.

1. Reframe innovation around a new reusability category

Classic consumer marketing conditioned us to launch every innovation to satisfy a specific human need, and corporate go/no-go decisions still lean heavily on consumer desirability — where ‘the consumer’ often becomes a theoretical construct. But plastic reduction isn’t rooted in a need; it is about resolving an addiction to single-use plastic that sits at the core of most consumer-goods operating models. Our job as marketers is to break that addiction and turn shopping trips into new habits built around reuse.

2. Persevere by scaling reuse pilots

Like any new behaviour, reuse takes perseverance — doing something once doesn’t make it a habit. Too many organizations pilot a sustainability NPD, then lose focus and strategic patience before the long-term strategy and investment can pay off. The usual verdict — ‘consumers aren’t ready to change, so scaling is risky and future profit is at risk’ — misreads the real barrier. Reuse needs new retail infrastructure, a good user experience, in-store convenience and repeated motivation, and all of that simply takes time and training. Successful deposit models around the world prove it can be done with the right vision, investment and persistence.

3. Build operating systems that let single-use and reuse coexist

Transformation is hard for large food and consumer-goods companies because their production is highly optimized for scale, low unit cost and shareholder value. Traditional operations are designed for the low-risk linear economy — take, make, waste — so the system is built to manage stability rather than respond to a changing sustainability context. That is what keeps so many consumers hooked on single-use packaging: convenience, low shelf price and scale.

So the task for industry leaders is to funnel investment not only into new production lines and advertising for conventional innovations, but also into reusable models and consumer education that secure long-term success and ROI. And reusability is already working at scale:

  • In the Nordic countries, circular models for plastic and glass beverage packaging engage a staggering 98% of consumers.
  • In South Korea, reusable food-delivery packaging has reached 50% of consumers.
  • Aarhus, Denmark, became the first city in the world to trial reusable coffee cups through a three-year deposit-return programme.

The direction of travel is clear. Our job is to help the industry move along it.