See what others don’t

By Josh Corradi-Remi, Commercial Manager

At a time when self-awareness matters more than ever, data can help you see what others don’t. 

Our future could last millions of years – or it could end tomorrow. As we approach a critical juncture for our planet, we must make profound moral decisions about how humanity’s path forward plays out. We have the chance to create positive change on behalf of future generations. 

The challenges we face are enormous. The average European generates 180kg of packaging waste yearly, which could rise 19% by 2030 without action. 

But the influence we can have is just as great. 

Insight is everything. At its most profound, it can change the world. At its simplest, it can solve everyday problems. It can be used to build businesses, solve crimes, progress science and make many aspects of our lives quicker, easier, bigger or better.

Yet remarkably, we often unwittingly build barriers to seeing what is in front of us. Both as individuals and organisations, we can hold on to flawed beliefs and conform to established processes that can interfere with our perceptions. Having clear insight can transform how we understand things, our decisions, and our actions. 

READ MORE: Why it might be time to fixate less on recycling. It’s supposed to be a last resort: limiting waste has more impact, and re-use is a better strategy where possible.  

Know your packaging 

Self-awareness is the meta-skill of the 21st century – the foundation for high performance, smart choices, and lasting relationships.

A walk along an urban high street before the rubbish collectors arrive to confront society’s love of packaging. From street bins overflowing with paper cups and pizza boxes to cardboard stacked up by shops for recycling, it’s clear that packaging is here to stay. 

In response, governments have redoubled their efforts to rein in packaging waste by adopting rules that will force producers to roll out more recyclable and products. 

The cost of packaging components continues to drive everything. New regulations may help drive changes in the industry, but the big challenge is still how we compete with inexpensive fossil-fuel based plastics. 

Fully transforming our current production and consumption models requires a huge mindset shift from individual behaviours to global collaboration between businesses and policymakers.  

And it could be the technology that’s shaped our world today that now helps us save it. Every day we see new and exciting examples of how to use technology to repair our planet. Social media is raising awareness of key environmental issues. Smart technology can reduce our energy consumption.  

Circular practices make business sense and improve firms’ competitiveness and economies’ resilience. Everyone, from citizens to businesses, has to get on board with circularity to remain within the carrying capacity of our planet. Governments need to create the conditions for whole-of-government and whole-of-society engagement towards a just transition to circular economies. 

A tool for enhancing intuition 

Organisations are starting to understand the value of becoming data-centric. 

The world produces about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day, with 90% of all data produced in just the last two years. With this explosion in the sheer volume of data being generated, an organisation wishing to expertly understand the value of its data will likely require expert support. 

At Ecoveritas, we help clients with best practices and can empathise with the challenges they face daily. We regularly discuss the journey involved in integrating data and making the most of it. With regards to Extended Producer Responsibility, among other multiplying legislation and other transnational interpretations, the sooner you are on that journey, the better. 

Our range of tools help customers to consume data. Frequently companies have plenty of data on their hands, but are missing the context that would let them make more informed decisions around their data. 

We operate as a bridge between a business problem and articulating that into business requirements or something you tangibly create as a solution. Knowing how to ask the right questions, defining that specific problem, and translating that into an ask, is a muscle we can help your business strengthen.  

Much of this concerns our roles and how we blur the lines between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Whether it’s suppliers (of which over 20,000 we engage with annually) and the business, or the business and data analytics function, we all have a role to play in driving business forward. At Ecoveritas, we push our team to operate outside of their perceived traditional silos to build data partnerships and unlock value creation. The more we can develop and blend many capabilities through talent together, the more we can find a much quicker solution. 

Part of the problem is that data companies have long made a sharp distinction between data and insight – and promise to deliver the latter rather than the former. This has given the impression that insight should drop out of the sky in neat, multicoloured rows. They also think that the tools they buy should make it easy. Most don’t. Ecoveritas solutions do. 

READ MORE: No more waste chances. Why we must be smart about communicating about packaging waste to make long-term thinking and action compatible with our irrational human tendencies. 

We wanted to make data come alive in pre-built dashboards so that our customers can accelerate and make effective changes to their business through their data. And now, anyone can click on their data and understand the big-picture, but at the same time, they can see how their data is created, managed, manipulated, stored, and—most importantly—how it’s used. You can manage the regulatory and reputational risks and use the data to prioritise the right environmental initiatives. 

Successful implementation of data solutions to tackle climate change will be determined by how organisations can collect, analyse, manage, and act upon their data promptly. These new challenges will require the use of brand-new data sets which have never been analysed in this way or collected for this use. It is a tough ask for many. 

It could be time to equip your business with the tools and strategies needed to thrive in the digital economy. Now is the right time to review how your business could transform its decisions and drive greater success. 

Ecoveritas’ tailored solutions are designed to positively affect every part of your business, helping you quantify, identify, demonstrate and illustrate your contribution towards making the world a better place.