Uber Eats and Planet Ark partnership to drive sustainable packaging
Uber Eats has announced a multi-year partnership with Planet Ark, designed to help Australian restaurants move towards more sustainable packaging. The first milestone between the two organisations has been consultation on a framework developed for Uber Eats by the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures. The peer-reviewed framework identifies whether a restaurant’s packaging meets certain sustainability criteria, including what is considered reusable, recyclable or compostable within the framework.
Uber Eats is also announcing up to $13m in funding over the next three years to stimulate more sustainable packaging uptake through programs and subsidies.
This follows a pilot initiative in the last quarter of 2023, where Uber Eats offered all small to medium-sized businesses access to $1m in funding to support the purchase of more sustainable packaging through its packaging partner Detpak.
General Manager, Uber Eats ANZ Bec Nyst said: “We are thrilled to partner with Planet Ark to bring information to businesses that are looking to make the shift to more sustainable packaging. We’ve already seen the incredible impact our technology can have on the restaurant ecosystem. Since making cutlery opt-in, rather than being included by default, we estimate eaters have helped reduce the equivalent weight of four jumbo jets worth of plastic forks, spoons and the like ending up in Australian landfill.”
“As we have increased our investment in this area and as we progress our partnership with Planet Ark, we’ll look to identify additional system changes to accelerate the uptake of more sustainable packaging options across Australia. We’ll use our scale and relationships with suppliers to improve the unit economics on more sustainable packaging. Finally, we will explore rewarding restaurants investing in this type of packaging with enhanced visibility on our platform.”
Planet Ark’s CEO Rebecca Gilling said: “There is increasing expectation from consumers, governments and the community to reduce the environmental impact of packaging. The recent announcement that the federal government will become the new regulator of packaging standards, mandating how packaging is designed, setting minimum recycled content requirements and prohibiting harmful chemicals being used, all ladder up to encouraging developments.”
“But while this is a positive outcome, there is still much to do, and there is a clear need to provide support to small businesses – including restaurants – on how to reduce packaging waste best. We’re delighted to be able to announce a multi-year effort with Uber Eats to help them assist their restaurant partners – and to lift the standard for the sector more broadly.”
“Uber Eats welcomes the Federal Government’s recent announcement to regulate packaging standards as it will provide national certainty and consistency for businesses. This is a positive signal for restaurants looking to shift to better packaging options. We know many restaurants are already making significant investments in packaging, and a unified national approach delivering consistency on minimum recycled content requirements, will only empower these larger enterprises to continue their investments,” said Nyst.
Caption:
Uber Eats is working towards using more reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging
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