A Year in Review and Seasonal Greetings from Clarity

As 2023 draws to an end, we extend our best wishes and gratitude to our clients, our suppliers, our partners, our team, and everyone in the Clarity network.

We acknowledge the challenges and opportunities we have collectively faced with the changing landscape of environmental compliance throughout 2023 and we recognise the great progress made by all navigating change and transitioning into new regulations.

As we share season’s greetings, we also reflect on our progress with our mission to improve lives, protect nature and make the world around us a better place to live. We thank everyone we work with for the positive impact we all make together.

Our dedicated team at Clarity are proud and thankful to have built meaningful long-term partnerships with our members leading to almost 100% of members (99.4%) staying with us for EPR and the future. We sincerely appreciate your business, the collaboration, the sharing of your challenges and needs, and receiving feedback on how we have helped our members navigate EPR, including:

“We sincerely appreciate Clarity’s support with the audit. We believe it played an important role in the overall positive perception of the audit. The recent submission also left an excellent impression with us – it was neat, clear, well summarized – exactly what we hope for our EPR submission to be.”

“We highly value the extra effort that Clarity continue to invest in accommodating our needs. Their willingness to go above and beyond in organising and facilitating meetings for us is truly appreciated. Clarity’s commitment to educating our business and board on Extended Producer Responsibility through insightful presentations has been invaluable.”

Our shared commitment to spearheading sustainable practices in the industry has been instrumental in realising our collective vision for a better, environmentally conscious world.

At Clarity we understand the immense pressure the sector is under with ongoing legislative reform and the financial and operational implications these have on obligated businesses. Clarity is committed to evolving alongside the industry and have invested significantly in ensuring a seamless transition to Extended Producer Responsibility for us and our partners. Empathy is at the heart of our approach as we introduce steps to further extend our support to businesses to help them navigate the new reforms.

In our commitment to client satisfaction, we’ve increased our compliance services team by a notable 40%. We’ve integrated stakeholder briefings dedicated to the wider understanding of Extended Producer Responsibility within organisations, as well as in-depth regulatory audit support, offering a comprehensive approach to navigating the evolving industry landscape.

We’ve upheld our dedication to cost-effective compliance by maintaining consistent membership pricing throughout 2023 and beyond. This deliberate choice, amid industry change, serves as a stabilising force, simplifying the compliance journey for businesses facing both financial and operational challenges.

By channelling additional investment into innovative data technology, we empower stakeholders with unparalleled transparency to demonstrate the quality of their environmental decisions. This not only acts as a financial safeguard for businesses but also provides reputational benefits for our partners.

To meet our clients’ growing needs for transparency and information, we have made significant investments including:

• Enhancement of our cutting-edge Data Platform, Clarion – enabling sophisticated intelligence and reporting.
• Our bespoke Environment Agency method aligned EPR Dashboard enabling a seamless transition to Extended Producer Responsibility.
• Our new website and branding, serving as a hub for accessible guidance, offering knowledge pieces, industry updates, videos, and webinars to support our clients.

Beyond technological advancements, we’ve expanded the expertise within our data services team with a 20% headcount increase. Looking ahead to 2024, team expansion and technological advancement continues as we pioneer unique environmental intelligence solutions.

We would like to thank our Suppliers successfully meeting our CREQS (Clarity’s Recycling Evidence Quality Standard) requirements for ethical PRN supply, enabling protection for our clients. We are proud to partner with reprocessors not only meeting the industry standard, but going beyond and acting as the front-runners of positive change.

73.9% of suppliers not meeting our CREQS Assurance Framework have faced suspension or cancellation, underscoring the efficacy of our protective measures and reinforcing our dedication to safeguarding quality and reputation.

Our CREQS process enables sustainability professionals within our membership base to evidence their measures within the supply chain to meet sustainability objectives.

We are exceptionally proud of the care, dedication and passion of our team and delighted to live our mission from within the business, focusing on improving lives for our extraordinary people so they can make a difference for those we serve. We end the year with survey results reporting 100% of staff find working at Clarity empowering and our staff happiness index scores consistently averaging an impressive 9.2 out of 10 over the past year.

We recognise how vital it is to reward, develop, and empower our industry specialists who share their talent to make meaningful impact for our clients.

Please note, we are closed from Friday 22nd December until Tuesday 2nd January 2023.

If you do need a member of our team during this time, please do call us on +44 (0)1273 929 220 and you will be directed to an out of hours number where a member of our team will be able to help you.