Speaking at SCALA’s annual supply chain debate last month, Bottle said that for all the work one company does to limit its impact on the environment, it would all amount to nothing if the industry weren’t all on board.
Using CCEP’s recent pledge to increase the amount of recycled polyethylene terephthalate in its plastic bottles from 25% to 50% as an example, Bottle said that a unilateral response to the issue on its own couldn’t change the whole culture that creates demand for a supply chain of single-use bottles.
‘Won’t be simple solutions’
“I think that concept applies to most environmental challenges within supply chain and logistics, but there won’t be simple solutions to them,” said Bottle.
“Potentially, electrical vehicles would be less damaging to the environment than diesel car motor engines, but I don’t think that one company on its own is going to change everybody’s behaviour. That has to be done through collaboration.”
Building trust
Harking back to her speech earlier in the day, she called on brands to show leadership to help facilitate collaboration by building trust between people working at different companies – and the people that you work with.
“Where we can build that trust across different businesses, learning to trust one another as individuals and to take a bit of a leap of faith – I think that’s what’s going to be a game-changer,” added Bottle. “I can’t see any other way of solving some of the bigger environmental issues that we face.”
Meanwhile, collaboration was the key take-home message from this year’s Food Safety Conference, according to Campden BRI director general Steven Walker in our exclusive video interview, filmed at the conference.