Advocacy & Policy

National: Submissions

Daniel L. Friesen
Programs Coordinator
Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment
123 Main Street, Suite 360
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 1A3
Via E-mail: dfriesen@ccme.ca

Dear Mr. Friesen:

On behalf of Retail Council of Canada (RCC) and our members operating across the country, we are pleased to provide comments on the Canadian Council of Minister's of the Environment's (CCME) Discussion Document: Towards a Proposed Canada-wide Action Strategy for Sustainable Packaging (February 2009).

Indeed, retailers support the principles of waste diversion as a whole and look forward to working together with CCME and other key stakeholders in creating a national strategy for sustainable packaging. RCC supports CCME's goal of creating a harmonized approach to packaging and believes it is in the most appropriate position — as a national body — to address this issue.

The following represents the initial thoughts of retailers, which may be added to and/or refined as further discussion and consultation takes place.

Packaging and the Role of Retailers

While we support packaging minimization, it must be recognized that retailers have a very limited influence on the design of packaging as it is the manufacturers who ultimately design and develop packaging for products.

That said, there are important roles for retailers to play including:

• Working with manufacturers and vendors to reduce packaging size, where possible;
• Taking steps to reduce packaging of private label brands; and
• Educating consumers to make more environmentally sustainable purchasing decisions.

It is also worth noting that packaging serves several critical functions which are important to retailers:

• Protection and preservation of the product;
• It serves as a deterrent to potential theft;
• It protects the health and safety of consumers and employees; and lastly,
• Effective packaging assists with the logistics of transporting and distributing goods from the manufacturer to store shelves.

As you can see, this is a complex issue. Developing sustainable packaging and waste diversion strategies takes time and retailers have been actively doing their part.

We see the main role of retailers to work with and influence vendors and manufacturers on the reducing packaging, where possible. That said, retailers will rely on the federal government and CCME to determine what types of packaging are sustainable. As discussed in the next section, retailers (and ultimately manufacturers) require clear direction and guidelines to help them make packaging decisions.

Retailers also have an important role to play in educating consumers. As the touch point for both consumers and manufacturers, retailers are a vital link in the supply chain and are strategically well positioned to assist in educating and increasing awareness among consumers. Again, we will look to the federal government and CCME for guidance to ensure that retailers and manufacturers are making accurate environmental claims about their products.

Packaging and Labelling Guidelines

RCC believes that the stakeholders that are responsible for packaging decisions need to be provided with clear guidelines and definitions of what types of packaging are sustainable and compatible with recycling facilities. Clear, consistent and national guidelines are needed to assist them in their packaging choices to avoid problematic wastes. As packaging is seldom designed for a provincial market (and is more often designed for continental and even global distribution systems) this guidance should come from a national body such as the CCME.

Accurate and appropriate labelling often helps consumers make more information decisions. As such, CCME should work closely with the Competition Bureau who, in collaboration with the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), released Environmental Claims: A Guide for Industry and Advertisers on June 25, 2008. This guide provides businesses with tools to ensure their advertising practices are not misleading and to improve the accuracy of environmental claims.

CCME should also take into consideration the existing federal health and safety regulations as they pertain to the packaging of certain food and pharmaceutical products.

Harmonization

Harmonization of product stewardship, waste diversion and environmental legislation and regulation is a fundamental concern for the retail sector. The need for regulation to encourage harmonization with other provinces cannot be overstated. Approaches to product stewardship across Canada are far from consistent and increasingly place national retailers in the position of having to comply with a patchwork of requirements across the country. Implementing different programs in every province has proven to be costly and administratively burdensome for retailers, not to mention it is confusing for consumers.

A significant challenge to achieving a harmonized packaging strategy will be the lack of harmonization and inconsistencies that currently exist. For example, approaches to the Blue Box program in Ontario are far from consistent, creating a patchwork of over 400 different municipal Blue Box programs across the province, making it confusing for all stakeholders. Currently Ontario's over 400 municipalities operate at different service levels and they accept different materials for recycling at their Material Recycling Facilities. It gets even more complicated when one specific municipality, the City of Toronto, has distinct and unique powers under the province's Stronger City of Toronto for a Stronger Ontario Act, 2005, which allows Toronto to tax or ban packaging.

Recently, the City of Toronto announced that it will ban plastic bags that are not compatible with its municipal Blue Box program, effective 2010. This includes biodegradable bags.

However, on the other end of the country, Vancouver's Park Royal Mall recently announced plans to eliminate plastic shopping bags that are labelled HDPE and LDPE, and are made from non-biodegradable plastic. Once their program is fully implemented in 2011, only reusable bags, paper bags and biodegradable plastic bags will be permitted.

With Toronto banning biodegradable bags and Vancouver encouraging them, it puts retailers — particularly national retailers — in an untenable situation. They cannot be expected to make purchasing decisions for specific markets depending on the actions of individual municipalities.

It is evident that we need a harmonized approach to addressing sustainable packaging across Canada.

Role of the Consumer

RCC believes that waste diversion is a shared responsibility. We all — governments, manufacturers, retailers and consumers — have a role to play in waste diversion. In order to be successful, government needs to place a greater emphasis on changing consumer behaviour.

Recent polls suggest that consumers are conscious of environmental issues and want to do the right thing but more needs to be done to translate this knowledge into action and accountability.

As the touch point for both consumers and manufacturers, retailers are a vital link in the supply chain and are strategically well positioned to assist in educating and increasing awareness among consumers. That said, educating consumers should not be the sole responsibility of any one stakeholder group. Governments have a critical role to play in consumer education as they are in the best position to deliver a clear, consistent and credible message to everyone.

EPR and Design for Environment

EPR and package design are two disparate issues. EPR is an environmental policy approach in which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product's life cycle.

CCME's Canada-Wide Principles for Extended Producer Responsibility states that related feature of EPR policy includes "providing incentives to producers to incorporate environmental considerations in the design of their products."

RCC does not agree that EPR and Design for Environment (DfE) are linked. EPR is a policy approach directed by government, while DfE is a business decision. Manufacturers must be compelled to change the design of their products. This could be done through regulatory standards (so long as they don't stifle innovation), incentives, responding to customer demand, and an internal desire to decrease the manufacturers' environmental footprint. DfE is a manufacturer's issue.

A February 2006 study from the OECD entitled EPR Policies and Product Design: Economic Theory and Selected Case Studies, discusses the DfE impacts of EPR policies and investigates the extent to which EPR policies can be expected to contribute to DfE.

The study states that:

Much that is written on the topic seems to take it on faith that any form of producer responsibility will provide DfE incentives, but there is very little careful conceptual thinking on how such incentives work through the system and sparse documentation of real-world changes that have been made in response to policies.

In assessing whether design changes have taken place in response to the EPR policies, the study first discuss the incentives provided by the policy and whether, and by what means, changes may take place. It then describes anecdotal evidence of such changes — i.e., reported changes that particular producers have made and also try to look broadly across some industry-wide measures. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat circumspect exercise. In terms of industry-wide changes, one does not know the counter-factual — i.e., what would have happened in the absence of the policy. For the anecdotes reported about changes to particular products, it is hard to know whether firms made the changes in response to the policies or for cost-savings or other reasons.

It is too early to say whether more complex forms of DfE for highly designed and engineered products such as electronics and motor vehicles can be encouraged with EPR policy, but it seems unlikely that large changes will result from the types of policies we currently see in place; in particular, PROs [Producer Responsibility Organization, similar to an IFO], as they currently operate, provide very little incentive for members to engage in DfE.

The findings of the OECD study strongly suggest that there is no clear link between EPR and DfE.

Cost Internalization

The guiding principles of the CCME Discussion Document (page 11) includes a polluter pay principle that "promotes the internalization of environmental costs and the use of economic instruments as a way to ensure that those responsible bear the costs attached to choices with environmental impacts."

RCC does not support cost internalization. Our submission on CCME's Canada-Wide Action Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility goes into greater detail but in summary we believe that this is a business decision, not a government decision, and legislation and regulation must remain silent this. It should also be noted that the European Union recently reversed its decision to move towards cost internalization, recognizing that this is a business issue, not a government issue.

Conclusion

Once again, thank you for the opportunity to comment the CCME's Discussion Document: Towards a Proposed Canada-wide Action Strategy for Sustainable Packaging. Retailers are committed to responsible environmental stewardship and we look forward to continuing to working with CCME and other affected stakeholders on developing a national sustainable packaging strategy.

If you require any further information or clarification, please do not hesitate to contact me at (416) 922-6678.

Sincerely,

Rachel Kagan
National Director, Environmental Affairs