Pioneering Pact to Reduce E-commerce Waste: Rezero’s Initiative for a Circular Economy

The Catalan foundation Rezero has introduced a comprehensive agreement, unique in Europe, aimed at drastically reducing packaging waste associated with electronic commerce. Major industry and public players, such as GLS, Wallapop, the Catalan Consumer Agency, and the Barcelona City Council, have joined the “Pact for the Reduction of E-commerce Waste”. The goal is to eliminate unnecessary packaging materials while maintaining the convenience of online shopping, responding to the explosive waste growth predicted by 2030.

Strategic Challenge: Convenience and Sustainability in Online Shopping

The sustained and unstoppable growth of e-commerce presents an increasingly serious strategic challenge for the entire economic sector. The key question is how to maintain the convenience, speed, and competitiveness of online shopping while effectively reducing the materials used, overpackaging, and the volume of waste closely associated with deliveries.

To address this issue, Rezero officially presented the Pact for the Reduction of E-commerce Waste (Pacte per la Reducció de Residus en el Comerç Electrònic) at the College of Journalists of Catalonia. This pioneering, comprehensive initiative brings together logistics companies, online retailers, packaging manufacturers, circular economy projects, business organizations, as well as public administrations and agencies. The shared goal is to radically transform the current packaging and distribution model of online purchases.

Broad Sectoral Collaboration and the First Signatories

From its inception, the Pact boasts broad and representative participation from the sector and the region. The first official signatories include key logistics and courier companies such as GLS Group, InPost, Koiki, Som Ecologística, and Wallapop. The initiative is also supported by companies committed to reducing environmental impact, promoting reuse, ecodesign, and sustainable e-commerce: Iaios, Capsa, Tot Herba, El Safareig, and Blue Room Innovation.

Furthermore, prominent institutions and economic representatives back the agreement. The Barcelona City Council (Ajuntament de Barcelona), the Catalan Consumer Agency (Agència Catalana del Consum), the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona), PIMEC (Catalan Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), and the Chamber of Commerce of Terrassa have all joined forces.

This initial group of signatories has clearly expressed a shared intention to move toward an e-commerce model that maintains the efficiency of the online channel but drastically reduces resource consumption. According to Rosa García, General Director of Rezero: “Shopping online shouldn’t mean filling homes with unnecessary boxes and filler materials. E-commerce does not have to be synonymous with more waste. It can be convenient, competitive, and circular. But to achieve this, the system needs to be redesigned.”

Alarming Quantitative Data: Over 440 Million Packages by 2030

The quantitative data released during the Pact’s announcement clearly highlights the true and urgent scale of the challenge. According to Rezero’s analysis and estimates, e-commerce in Catalonia generated over 300 million packages in 2025 alone, directly linked to online shipments. If the current model and consumer habits remain unchanged, this figure could approach 440 million packages per year by 2030.

The impact on the volume of waste produced by the system is equally critical. The published study estimates that packaging and filler materials associated with e-commerce already account for tens of thousands of tons annually. If current packaging usage patterns persist, the resulting waste could exceed 120,000 tons per year by 2030.

This massive volume consists primarily of cardboard, paper, single-use plastics, and protective materials used during shipping. Cardboard is the dominant material for both outer boxes and internal void fill, meaning this raw material concentrates the most significant portion of the environmental burden associated with the current system.

Direct Impact on Municipal Waste Management

The drastic increase in package numbers already has an immediate, measurable impact on local municipal waste management. According to official data from the Barcelona City Council, the weight of paper and cardboard collected in recycling bins has increased by 27% over the last ten years. Additionally, the proportion of domestic collection within the total collected cardboard has significantly surpassed previous levels: while this share was 50.16% in 2016, it jumped to 63.27% in 2025. These figures clearly reflect the growing prevalence of online shopping and home delivery services in everyday domestic life.

As Rosa García points out: “The problem is not just the quantity of packages, but how they are packaged, how they are transported, how they are returned, and what options the consumer has. If we do not act immediately, the expansion of e-commerce will inevitably bring a proportional increase in material consumption and waste generation.”

Systemic Change Instead of Shifting Responsibility

The initiators emphasize that the burden of reducing packaging waste cannot fall exclusively on end consumers and shoppers. While the public’s role is crucial in selective waste collection or returning reusable packaging to the system, real, meaningful change must occur much earlier in the supply chain. This includes the physical design of products and packaging, order preparation in warehouses, applied logistics processes, the optimization of return channels, and the educational information provided to customers.

To achieve this, the Pact intends to intervene across the entire value chain through four fundamental lines of action:

1. Offering Reusable and Returnable Packaging: Certain online orders should arrive in packaging that does not immediately become waste after a single use but is returned to the logistics network to be used multiple times.

2. Eliminating Additional Packaging: Removing extra, secondary packaging whenever a product already has a sufficiently secure original factory box to be shipped without adding another box, bag, or envelope.

3. Optimizing Delivery and Return Procedures: Infrastructure improvements, such as expanding local parcel points, clear communication, enhanced tracking systems, and the integration of logistics channels that make reuse viable and straightforward in practice.

4. Improving Consumer Information: Ensuring customers can clearly identify platforms, stores, and services that offer lower-waste solutions, optimized shipping, or returnable packaging.

A Shared Direction and Preparation for 2030 Regulations

The main added value of the Pact is its integrated approach: bringing together economic actors involved in different phases of the purchasing process. Alexandra Cid, a representative of the packaging company CAPSA, highlighted the following regarding the initiative: “Transporting air, oversized boxes, and single-use materials is neither environmentally nor economically efficient. The Pact aims to help the sector transition toward solutions that are applicable, competitive, and circular.”

The Pact is significant not only from an environmental standpoint but also as a major economic and innovation opportunity. It prepares the industry for the anticipated, much stricter European and state-level legal requirements set for 2030, which will heavily focus on waste prevention, ecodesign, penalizing overpackaging, and mandatory reuse. This agreement remains a continuously expanding, open tool, welcoming further companies, municipalities, online marketplaces, logistics operators, and manufacturers to join in the future.

References and Sources:

• Original Source: Rezero – Pacte per la Reducció de Residus en el Comerç Electrònic

• Official State/Public Entity Source (Catalan Consumer Agency, a signatory of the Pact): Agència Catalana del Consum