2023 APCO Award Winner Spotlight - CHEP
APCO Member CHEP provides equipment pooling services to a wide range of industries across the nation. This includes some of Australia’s largest companies, and APCO Members, including Coca-Cola, Nestle, Coles, Woolworths, ALDI, Mondelez, many more. These organisations rely on the CHEP network to help them deliver their essential products every day.
This year, CHEP took home a double triumph by winning both the prestigious ‘Our Packaging Future Award’ for Reuse, and the ‘Industry Sector Award’ for Logistics and Warehousing (for the sixth year in a row)!
APCO’s Reuse Award celebrates outstanding examples of reusable systems in Australia. The Reuse category focuses on packaging that demonstrates its ability to accomplish a minimum number of trips or reuse cycles within its lifecycle, using a purposefully designed system of reuse for the same application.
CHEP undertook a significant capital investment program in recent years designing and building 6 major capital city service centres. Opening in Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, adding to the 50+ locations across Australia, the new services centres feature state-of-the-art technology to repair, wash and condition CHEP pallets, bins and containers.
CHEP’s service centres support industry needs for sustainable packaging solutions that are fit-for-purpose, circular and accessible. The objective was to build a ‘network of the future’ that supports industry needs through careful planning, site selection, technology and the provision of products that support sustainable supply chains. CHEP achieved this by:
1. Employing new technologies: Designing these operations required sourcing global expertise from existing and new suppliers, overseas and local experts and customers. CHEP pallets, bins and containers run through purpose-built facilities that inspect, repair, wash and condition platforms that meet the Australian Pallet Quality Standard (PQS) and HACCP standards where applicable.
2. Planning and Design: The system relies on designing a well-planned network of service centres to operate the reuse system and serve customers. By having its service centres in close proximity to major customers and logistics hubs in metropolitan and regional areas, CHEP pallets, bins and containers are able to be used as either primary, secondary or tertiary packaging depending on customer requirements.
3. Employment of technicians: At all times, CHEP’s goal is to keep materials in the highest order for as long as possible by employing repair technicians, technology and processes that efficiently reclaim, repair, refurbish and return platforms back into the supply chain.
As a result, In FY ‘23 over 3 million single-use B2B packaging cartons were removed from the supply chain saving the environment over 4,000 tonnes in greenhouse gases, 568 tonnes of waste from landfill and approximately 32,000 kiloLitres of water.
The Industry Sector Awards recognises the top organisations promoting sustainability and innovation in each respective sector. CHEP has demonstrated a continued commitment to providing sustainable options to contribute to a more circular economy. This includes consistently reviewing its packaging against APCO’s Sustainable Packaging Guidelines (SPGs) for all of CHEP’s baseline metrics and seeking opportunities to utilise alternative materials such as recycled content.
CHEP also offers Sustainability Certificates for its customers to assist with reporting and reducing environmental impacts. The certificates are calculated using Life Cycle Assessments that quantify a company’s contribution to a sustainable packaging supply chain. Through its certificate program, CHEP Australia supports customers to report against APCO packaging requirements.