Retail & logistics’ biggest challenge of 2022: implementing the Deposit Return System
Source：business-review
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Bucharest
Update Time：2022/04/28
BR’s recent re:FOCUS on eCommerce, Retail & Logistics, held on February 10, 2022, at the Courtyard by Marriott Bucharest Floreasca, featured 3 engaging panels in which leading retailers, couriers, logistics and commercial developers, and eCommerce major players shared valuable insights, best practices, challenges and opportunities of their respective industries. However, the closing panel of the conference was, for the first time in the history of BR’s re:FOCUS on eCommerce, Retail & Logistics, dedicated to a special topic which industry experts view as retail & logistics’ biggest challenge of 2022: implementing a fair and functional Deposit Return System (DRS).
Speaking from the re:FOCUS on eCommerce, Retail & Logistics stage, Cosmin Teodoru, General Director at the Romanian Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests, Julia Leferman, General Manager at the Brewers of Romania Association, Alice Nichita, President at the National Soft Drinks Association (ANBR), Bogdan Purcherea, Managing Director at Envipco Holding, and Emanuel Parvulescu, Head of Environment at Cora, and moderated by Ionut Georgescu, Founder & CEO at FEPRA, explored all the aspects surrounding the implementation of the Deposit Return System in Romania.
A very passionate supporter of the DRS, moderator Ionut Georgescu kicked-off the panel by saying that he had been waiting for this project for several years now. “DRS could change the Romania in regards to how we treat our packaging and the waste resulted from it. This project has the potential to create a functional circular economy system in our country.” Georgescu opened the talks.
DRS, the most important sustainability project implemented in Romania
Not just from an investment perspective, the DRS is certainly the biggest and most important sustainability project to happen in Romania in the past 30 years. Education and raising awareness towards this issue will be paramount in the near future, in order to create a fair and functional system. However, from a logistics perspective, the DRS seems like a herculean task, taking into account how many stakeholders have to be involved to create a working system.
A retailer’s perspective
In Romania, around 7,000-10,000 retail units amount for nearly 35 percent of the national consumption. In these conditions, how do retailers view the Deposit Return System, as a burden or a facility? Emanuel Parvulescu, Head of Environment at Cora, tried to address this question. “It’s definitely an advantage for us, it’s a facility offered to our end-consumer. The system will become the biggest private investment in waste management in Romania. To become operational, the system needs to be able to efficiently collect large quantities of packaging waste from the consumers, and this will be beneficial to the entire chain: from citizens to producers, from retailers to authorities. Obviously, as retailers, we are essential partners in this endeavor, more so to our customers, but also to the producers and the authorities.” Says Parvulescu.
Source: https://business-review.eu/greenrestart/retail-logistics-biggest-challenge-of-2022-implementing-the-deposit-return-system-228173