A hundred billion plastic bags are used in the U.S. every year, and less than 10% of them are recycled.
Every year, plastic retail bags are among the top ten items found on beaches and waterways worldwide.
In 2020, Closed Loop Partners, a circular-economy-focused investment firm and innovation center, convened the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag with a group of America’s largest chains. IDEO joined as an innovation partner, helping to source nine promising startups in the Beyond the Bag challenge. The consortium was built for action, allowing winning startups to pilot their products and programs in the wilds of major retail. The multi-year collaboration shows what’s possible with unprecedented partnerships. Because a waste-free future needs to be designed by everyone.
Progress
9 stores
tested solutions across Northern California
Millions of dollars
raised BY Two startups
The CHallenge
The Impact
The Outcome
Press & Links
America’s leading retailers share a common goal—doing less harm to the planet.
The systemic challenges standing in the way require a bold new approach, and no single company can solve them alone. So Closed Loop Partners convened a group consisting of founding partners CVS Health, Target, and Walmart, along with 12 other leading retailers. As the innovation partner, IDEO helped launch a global search for breakthrough sustainable ideas that yielded more than 450 submissions from startups and entrepreneurs to reinvent the single-use plastic retail bag, with nine finalists entering a six-month accelerator.
New alternatives ranged from biodegradable solutions to systems that kept reusable bags in rotation. IDEO teams not only facilitated collaboration between startups and sustainability leads from partner retailers, but also provided a boost of additional expertise from industrial, data, and business designers. In a matter of months, teams were able to launch prototypes in select CVS Health, Target, and Walmart stores in California and New Jersey.
Everyone involved in the consortium knew that replacing single-use plastic retail bags is a problem that won’t be solved quickly or easily. But the Beyond the Bag challenge helped them learn that designing for the policy and infrastructure of tomorrow requires tangible steps, taken together, today.
