In the spring, X5 published Russia’s first sustainable packaging recommendations — representing the first time a large retailer has advised its suppliers to package their products in a way that is easily recyclable. This was not only a landmark achievement for the advancement of Russian retail as a global leader in sustainability, but it was also the result of extensive, industry-wide collaboration.
The initiative began as an internal goal — to increase the share of sustainable packaging used in X5’s own private label products to 50% by 2023 — which we expanded once we realized our vision for responsible packaging could be shared with our partners. When X5 set out to develop packaging guidelines to boost sustainability across the retail industry, we quickly realized a collaborative approach would be necessary — not only to create recommendations that are practical and applicable, but also to encourage buy-in along the entire supply chain.