Recycling Without Borders:
A Global Waste Minimisation
Strategy for Rapid Growth
How a consistent, intuitive recycling system delivered 97% recycling and 100% landfill diversion across 90 offices worldwide.
AT A GLANCE - CHALLENGES
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Creating a consistent waste system across 90 offices in multiple countries
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Different languages, landlords, suppliers, and recycling regulations in every location
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Capturing reliable waste data before it disappeared into building-level streams
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Making recycling easy for busy employees without relying on individual motivation
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OBJECTIVES
A fast-growing global insurance group needed a waste system that could scale with it, from 300 employees across 10 offices to 3,500 people in 90 offices in the space of five years. The challenge was significant: how do you create a consistent, easy-to-use recycling system across dozens of countries, languages, landlords, and local regulations, without complicating things for the people using it? Working as embedded sustainability lead, Ecofiniti set out to:
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Design a globally consistent waste system that any employee could use intuitively.
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Make recycling the default, regardless of country or language.
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Manage all operational and regulatory complexity behind the scenes.
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Maximise recycling rates and achieve 100% landfill diversion.
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Capture reliable waste data to support environmental reporting.
"We took the complexity away from the people. Behind a simple, consistent system, we were managing different suppliers, regulators, and landlords in every country."
CHALLENGES
Managing waste at this scale required navigating a genuinely
complex operational landscape. Every new office brought different local regulations governing what could be recycled and how. Landlord arrangements varied, in many buildings, waste would enter a shared building stream before any data could be captured. Suppliers differed by region and capability. And with a workforce growing rapidly across multiple time zones and cultures, creating a system that required no prior knowledge from employees was essential.
At the same time, food contamination presented a persistent
challenge in offices with cafés. Contaminated packaging is one of the most common reasons recyclable material ends up in landfill, and expecting busy professionals to wash out lunch containers is not a realistic solution. The shift to compostable packaging resolved this directly.
RESULTS
Across 90 global offices, the system delivered industry-leading waste performance, achieved not by complicating the process, but by making the right choice the easiest one.
SOLUTIONS
A Consistent Global Front End
Standardised signage, bin shapes, and colour-coding were embedded into the design specification for every office worldwide. Colour, shape, and locally translated wording worked together so employees immediately understood where to sort waste, with no prior knowledge required. Blue meant paper. In every office. Every time.
Centralised Waste Points
Desk bins were removed. Waste was centralised near kitchen areas and defined collection points. This improved hygiene, reduced cleaning inefficiency, and made data capture straightforward.
Cleaner Processes and Data Capture
The colour-coding extended to cleaner workflows. Colour-coded bag tags matched the bins. In larger offices, bespoke on-site weighing scales, paired with a colour-coded iPad interface, allowed cleaning staff to record waste data by material stream before it entered landlord-managed building systems. Simple, accessible, and consistent for all staff regardless of language.
Back-End Complexity, Handled by Ecofiniti
Different offices brought different landlords, suppliers and recycling regulations. Ecofiniti managed all of this, optimising recycling behind the scenes and maintaining a uniform user experience even where local constraints varied.
Composting and Biodegradable Packaging
Education and Daily Feedback
In offices with on-site cafés, food contamination was the primary barrier to recycling. The solution: switching to compostable packaging so that food waste and its packaging could go into a single composting stream. Colour-coded stickers and signage on café counters made the right choice obvious to staff and suppliers alike.
Staff were introduced to the system during HR inductions and office-opening walkthroughs. Screens in kitchenette areas displayed daily environmental KPIs, including recycling performance, giving employees visible, near-real-time feedback on their collective impact.
BENEFITS
1. Simpler Employee Behaviour
By making the right choice the obvious choice, through colour, shape, and clear signage, the system
removed the cognitive burden from staff. Employees didn't need to know local recycling rules. They simply sorted waste the way the system showed them.
2. Reliable Data for Reporting
Capturing waste data at source, before it entered the building's waste stream, gave the organisation its own accurate performance data. This fed into environmental reporting, tracked progress against targets, and enabled rapid response to changes in performance.
3. A System Built to Scale
As the organisation grew from 10 to 90 offices, the waste system grew with it, because it was designed into the office specification from the start. New locations launched with the system already in place, ensuring consistency from day one.
SIGNAGE PROGRAMME
Physical signage was the most visible expression of the waste system: the point where strategy became everyday behaviour.
This visual language extended beyond the signs themselves, with bag tags, bin lids, weighing scale interfaces, and café counter stickers all following the same colour-coding system. The result was a consistent journey from point-of- disposal through to data collection.
For the global rollout, a bespoke 276-piece signage programme was developed across six sign types, each tailored to a specific office setting. A unified typeface, PMS colour palette, and design logic ensured the system was instantly recognisable and easy to follow for employees across all locations.
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BROADER ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT
The waste programme was one component of a wider sustainability strategy at the workplace. During the initial phase of this strategy, the organisation achieved an 8.8% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions against its baseline, generating over $710,000 in savings and avoided costs.
Building on this progress, the organisation set further emissions reduction targets over a five-year pathway, with projected savings of $3.9–5.6 million against investment of under $1 million, and a target return on investment of 25%. Waste performance and landfill diversion formed a core plank of that strategy, complementing energy reduction, green procurement, and carbon reporting initiatives.
The organisation’s carbon footprint assessment, covering 90+ offices worldwide, confirmed that Scope 1 and 2 emissions had reduced by 30% year-on-year, driven largely by office consolidation and operational efficiencies.
The waste system’s 100% landfill diversion rate contributed directly to this performance, as well as to the organisation’s CDP and GRI reporting obligations.
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