Scaling Reuse Models: A Guide to Standardized Measurement

The World Economic Forum's Consumers Beyond Waste initiative proposes two priority metrics to standardize reuse measurement: 'Share of volume or units' to track the scale of reusable portfolios, and 'Reuse effectiveness' to measure actual usage via loops. The guide defines reuse modalities—refill at home, refill on the go, return from home, and return on the go—and establishes strict criteria for containers to qualify as reusable or recyclable, including a 30% post-consumer recycling rate threshold for 'in practice and at scale' recyclability. Piloting by companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Unilever highlighted the need for better data on at-home consumer behavior and the preference for product-based volume measurements over packaging weight.

• The framework establishes two priority metrics to track reuse: Metric 1 (Share of volume or units) measures the scale of a company's reusable portfolio, while Metric 2 (Reuse effectiveness) evaluates the average number of loops achieved by containers to determine if the system is actually functioning.
• To qualify as 'recyclable in practice and at scale', a container must achieve a 30% post-consumer recycling rate in multiple regions representing at least 400 million inhabitants, or achieve that rate in all markets where the packaging is sold.
• The guide defines four distinct reuse modalities: 'Refill at home' and 'Refill on the go' (where consumers fill their own containers), and 'Return from home' and 'Return on the go' (where containers are returned to businesses for cleaning and refilling).
• A grace period is established until 2030 for containers that are 'designed for recycling' but not yet recyclable 'in practice and at scale', intended to incentivize the scaling of necessary infrastructure.
• Piloting outcomes from companies including Unilever, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo indicate that measuring diluted product volumes is a fairer representation of reuse than measuring compacted volumes for concentrates or packaging weight.
• The framework specifies that for a container to be considered reusable, at least 95% of it by weight should be reusable, and it must be part of a broader system with established arrangements ensuring the possibility of reuse.

APA

World Economic Forum (2024). Scaling Reuse Models: A Guide to Standardized Measurement. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Scaling_Reuse_Models_2023.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Scaling Reuse Models: A Guide to Standardized Measurement. 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Scaling_Reuse_Models_2023.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Scaling Reuse Models: A Guide to Standardized Measurement |date=January 2024 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Scaling_Reuse_Models_2023.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2024scaling, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Scaling Reuse Models: A Guide to Standardized Measurement}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2024}, month = jan, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Scaling_Reuse_Models_2023.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }