Client Name

Reckitt Pakistan

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Atizaz Ahsan

SBS Thought Leadership Areas

Investment Decision Making

SBS Thought Leadership Area Justification

Investment Decision Making is the primary Thought Leadership area our project aligns with. At its core, our project was not simply an argument for sustainable packaging — it was a financial decision-support model built for a real corporate client. We constructed a bottom-up cost model for Reckitt's Veet portfolio that translated sustainability ambitions into investment metrics that a finance team could actually act on. For example, rather than presenting the Advanced scenario as environmentally preferable in abstract terms, we showed that it costs only $3,833 more per year compared to $206,955 for the Moderate scenario, while delivering more than double the carbon reduction — a finding that directly reframes how the decision should be made. We went further by building ROI-style efficiency metrics: cost per 1% CO₂ reduction ($149 for Advanced vs $16,727 for Moderate) and cost per SIC point ($128 vs $6,899), which are the kinds of measures that allow sustainability investments to be evaluated on the same terms as any other capital allocation decision. Perhaps most significantly, our model challenged and corrected a deeply intuitive but incorrect assumption — that the more ambitious the sustainability scenario, the higher the cost — and proved the opposite with numbers. This is precisely what the Investment Decision Making thought leadership area is about: generating rigorous, evidence-based knowledge that improves how businesses allocate resources and evaluate competing options. Our project is also secondarily aligned with Entrepreneurship and Innovation, as we did not stop at analysis but proposed a phased implementation roadmap — Year 1 pilot, Years 2–3 full scale-up — that mirrors how innovation investments are staged in practice to manage supply chain risk before full commitment.

Aligned SDGs

GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Aligned SDGs Justification

This goal calls for businesses to adopt sustainable practices and reduce waste and harmful emissions across production and supply chains. Your project addresses this head-on: the entire packaging assessment is built around reducing virgin plastic consumption (by up to 55% under Advanced), increasing post-consumer recycled content to 50%, and transitioning to mono-material designs that score a perfect 1.00 recyclability rating. The current Veet portfolio uses 1,460 tonnes of virgin plastic annually in multi-layer laminated structures that are not practically recyclable — your project models a concrete, costed pathway out of that. SDG 12 is the goal most directly served.

NDA

No

Abstract

Veet by Reckitt has a four-SKU personal-care portfolio that puts 115 million units of packaging on the market each year. The plastic used in the portfolio totals 1,460 tonnes per year; paperboard totals 1,715 tonnes per year; and the portfolio's total packaging 3,175 tonnes per year, of which 46.0% is plastic. The packaging specifications in use today result in an estimated 4,425 tonnes of CO₂e per year and require 100% virgin plastic, many of which are in multi-layers which are not practical to recycle. This assessment has two improvement pathways that are modelled based on the current baseline. The Moderate scenario adds 30% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic which improves the recyclability of the portfolio. The Advanced scenario is a mix of 50% PCR, 10% lightweighting, and a change to 100% monomaterial plastic. Each scenario is assessed based on carbon, recycled content, recyclability, virgin-plastic reduction, the Reckitt Sustainable Innovation Calculator (SIC) and full financial cost impact. Headline Finding The Advanced scenario is the desired end-state. It reduces the impact of virgin plastic use in the portfolio by 55% (1,135 tonnes CO₂e per year), records the highest SIC score of 30/30, and only has a cost impact of +$3,833 per year (+0.11%), a near negligible cost premium due to the price of PCRs. The Moderate scenario is best seen as a stepping stone between the Low and High scenarios, and should not be interpreted as a target aim. It represents a carbon reduction of 12.4% (548 tonnes per year), about 48% of the carbon opportunity available under Advanced, but has a materially higher annual cost uplift of $206,955 (+5.8% on packaging spend). In the Moderate scenario there is no lightweighting offset, so that's the 22.5% full premium for every kg of PCR. This means that when compared to Advanced, the cost of CO₂ abated is significantly higher.

Document Type

Restricted Access

Document Name for Citation

Experiential Learning Project

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