Circular economy initiatives

Some of the key initiatives undertaken during the year are detailed below.

Bunnings

Bunnings is committed to collaborating with its suppliers, industry and government to reduce the environmental impact of its operations, products and services, and work towards a circular economy. Integral to this is minimising operational waste, optimising product packaging and supporting product stewardship programs that help customers live more sustainably.

During the 2024 financial year, Bunnings’ operational waste that was diverted from landfill increased to 60.6 per cent, compared with 57.1 per cent in the previous financial year. This improvement was achieved through a continued focus on material waste streams, an expansion of resource recovery options and optimised waste management practices. 

As a member of APCO and the Soft Plastic Recycling Scheme in New Zealand, Bunnings is committed to working towards more sustainable packaging solutions. In partnership with its suppliers, Bunnings continued its focus on removing unnecessary product packaging, improving packaging design for recovery and reducing the use of packaging materials that are difficult for customers to recycle.

Bunnings continued to include the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) on product packaging to help its customers support the end-of-life recovery of packaging. Throughout the year, the ARL was applied to more than 1,100 additional products in the Bunnings range.

During the year, Bunnings continued to partner with not-for-profit organisations and businesses to offer in-store drop-off services to recycle household and power tool batteries across Australia and New Zealand. Together with the help of local communities, over 550 tonnes of batteries have been collected for recycling as of 30 June 2024, since the program launched in late 2021.

In South Australia, more than 1,200 tonnes of e-waste were collected for recycling in partnership with Minda and Electronic Recycling Australia through the Unplug N’ Drop program, which provides ongoing work opportunities for people with a disability.

Bunnings also extended its plastic plant pot recycling program during the year, which is offered at over 240 selected stores across Australia and New Zealand. The program offers a circular solution for plant packaging made from polypropylene plastic (PP5), which is difficult for many municipal recycling facilities to process. Customers are also invited to reuse returned plastic pots and Bunnings works with its partners to recycle remaining materials that are not reused into items such as new plastic nursery pots. 

In the years ahead, Bunnings will focus on the acceleration of more sustainable packaging solutions across its supply chain and the further improvement of waste management and resource recovery solutions across Australia and New Zealand.

 Kmart

This year, Kmart Group launched a new internal Sustainability Framework, building on the improvements in sustainable materials in prior years and expanding its scope to promote greater durability and recoverability by design. The division continues to support industry preferred materials across all apparel products, such as using organic, Australian or Better Cotton initiative certified cotton and recycled polyester.

Officeworks

Officeworks is helping to reduce the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss by supporting the transition to a more circular economy by implementing considerate design values, using regenerative materials and keeping products in use for longer through repair, reuse and recycling initiatives, including through our Bring it Back program, Moorup tech trade in initiative and Circonomy partnership.

In 2024, Officeworks repaired and resold 235 tonnes of damaged items in partnership with Circonomy, Australia's first recovery, repair and resale service.

Officeworks’ ambition to prioritise repair and reuse over recycling saw it also expand its Bring it Back program to include school stationery supplies in a select number of stores in partnership with Stationery Aid, which collected and repurposed 32 kgs of stationery items for disadvantaged students.

Additionally, its Trade In initiative with Moorup extends the life of valuable technology devices, such as mobiles, laptops and tablets, keeping 4,753 number of products in use for longer.

During 2025, Officeworks aims to expand its Bring It Back program to include school stationery supplies across an additional 25 stores, encouraging more Australians to recycle and repurpose eligible products. Officeworks will continue to work closely with Circonomy to broaden its circular economy program to repair, reuse and repurpose a greater volume of items.

To date, Officeworks has repaired, repurposed or recycled 11,880 tonnes of unwanted products with an aim to achieve 15,000 tonnes, around 85 to 90 per cent of our target by 2025.

Total operational waste to landfill increased by one per cent during the year due to the growth of the Officeworks business, but waste to landfill diversion and remained steady.

WIS

The Industrial and Safety division strives to reduce waste to landfill where possible – via packaging improvements, more conscious use of available resources and increased focus on initiatives that promote greater reusability and recycling. The division is committed to the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) targets or industry equivalents.

Packaging improvements

Blackwoods continues to make progress towards meeting its sustainability targets and adhering to Australian Packaging Covenant (APCO)  guidelines by taking a more concerted, data-driven approach to packaging. The business unit has developed a preferred packaging materials list and user-friendly data collection process that promote transparency and compliance. The tools also capture valuable insights that enable more informed decision-making about sustainable packaging solutions and help identify areas for sustainability improvements.

Since 2020, Blackwoods has undertaken several packaging waste reduction initiatives in relation to its exclusive brand Workhorse, with 85 per cent of Workhorse packaging now recyclable. Workwear Group has advanced its progress towards meeting its sustainable packaging targets through the roll-out of its Product Packaging Standard and Procedure. This initiative includes introducing joker tags onto industrial lowers, transitioning to a paper string attachment for swing tags on NNT Corporate Wear, a paper-based sizing sticker and on-product marketing with icons advising correct packaging disposal. Workwear Group is also starting to phase out the use of plastic kimbles in favour of jute twine and paper or cotton string on 67 per cent of products and starting to transition to recycled garment polybags.

Minimising waste

NZ Safety Blackwoods established a target of 80 per cent waste diversion by FY2030. This year, it successfully diverted 50.1 per cent from land fill. It achieved this through a waste audit and education of managers.

Recognising diversion initiatives have not progressed as planned, Blackwoods and Workwear Group are reviewing targets and strengthening action plans for FY2025.

Workwear Group has commenced a review of waste data to identify the cause of the increase to overall waste year-on-year. Large-scale clean-outs from two warehouses contributed to the increase of waste to landfill in FY2024. Cardboard recycling also increased. The business unit will strengthen action plans in FY2025 with an aim to decrease overall waste, including identifying solutions to reduce cardboard recycling requirements, and increase recycling efforts of waste currently entering landfill.

Coregas is progressing its phase out single selective use cylinders, trialling new biodegradable tamper seals on pin index medical gas cylinders and biodegradable dust caps for industrial gas cylinders. It has also continued to dispose and recycle cylinders at end-of-life through third-party providers.

Bullivants commenced an internal project to reduce the microns of the stretch wrap used in operations to minimise plastic waste.

 Health

Wesfarmers Health recognises that its business operations have a direct and indirect impact on the environment. A material part of this impact is its treatment of waste, packaging and plastics.

Operational waste

During the 2024 financial year, Wesfarmers Health focused on delving into and analysing waste data for its retail stores and clinics, to identify areas of opportunity. In prior years, the focus of reporting has been on distribution and fulfilment centres as these sites represented the biggest contributors towards the business’ waste footprint.

The business has now developed an operational waste model for stores and clinics using data collected from targeted waste audits. These audits provide a means to reliably estimate the waste footprint of stores and clinics. With a stronger understanding of its operational waste baseline, Wesfarmers Health can turn its attention to waste reduction strategies in an informed way. These audits uncovered potential improvements, specifically in paper recycling.

The operational waste footprint for the division (including an estimate for retail stores and clinics), was 2,301.5 tonnes during the 2024 financial year, with 80.4 per cent of this waste diverted from landfill.

Packaging and plastics

Wesfarmers Health completed its first APCO Annual Report and Action Plan in March and May 2024. Achieving a result of Getting Started, Wesfarmers Health has used this to identify specific areas for improvement and develop its own sustainable packaging guidelines for private label suppliers. These guidelines will govern future product developments and product packaging range reviews in designing for packaging recoverability and recyclability.

While Wesfarmers Health acknowledges it is in the formative stages of its sustainable packaging journey, it is particularly committed to improving packaging in private-label products where it has the most leverage.

Wesfarmers Health also commenced work on implementing Australasian Recycling Labels (ARL) by adding its first ARL to one of its own-brand products for the first time. The ARL Program is an on-pack labelling scheme designed to inform consumers on the best way to dispose of product packaging, as well as assist brand owners with the development of recyclable packaging. The addition of ARLs on packaging is a key driver of increased consumer awareness and driver of waste diversion rates.

Take back program

Priceline has continued to participate in a take back program that was initially launched by Maybelline in partnership with Terracycle during 2021. The program encourages customers to return their empty makeup containers, regardless of brand, to be deposited in dedicated collection units located within Priceline stores. In return, Priceline Sister Club members are rewarded with points. The collected makeup packaging is then sent to Terracycle, where it is sorted, processed and converted into usable raw material that can be repurposed and diverted from landfill.

OneDigital

Catch’s two fulfilment centres are the biggest contributors to OneDigital’s waste. During the year, Catch sought to emphasise better waste management practices by partnering with external experts to undertake a detailed waste assessment at its fulfilment centres. The assessment supported a greater understanding of current waste practices and waste streams and helped identify potential waste reduction strategies and savings.

Catch’s operational waste (disposed to landfill and recovered) was 338.7 tonnes with a diversion rate of 57.3 per cent for the 2024 financial year.

In FY2024, Catch continued to partner with Circonomy and TIC Group to manage end-of-line mixed pallet customer returns, improving sustainable outcomes for under-utilised goods and reducing items being sent to landfill. 

Catch aims to reduce the volume of packaging materials in its operations and during the year made further progress on its circular economy commitment by becoming a signatory to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO). Catch has submitted an APCO new member action plan and has commenced compiling baseline composition and consumption data for all packaging materials.

The baseline data will be used in coming years to develop policies, procedures and actions to measure, manage and improve packaging material use and waste streams.