From challenge to opportunity 

In Ülemiste City alone, until recently, an average of 200,000 disposable packages were used annually. The organic growth of the campus and the addition of new caterers would mean an ever-increasing volume of packaging waste. Due to this, Ülemiste City took on an ambitious goal in 2022 – to eliminate all disposable food and drink utensils from caterers. 

Ringo, whose reusable food packaging has an average lifespan of 40–120 washes, was chosen as a cooperation partner. One Ringo food packaging life cycle equals an average of 80 disposable boxes. Thus, the footprint of a single-use package is, on average, four times higher than that of a Ringo reusable food container. One use of Ringo emits 10g CO2, cardboard food packaging 28g CO2 and PET plastic packaging 48g CO2. 

In May 2022, Ringo’s round table was organized, and facilitated by a neutral trainer, Kadi Kenk, CEO of Teeme Ära. During the round table, the necessity of repackaging and its sectoral regulations became evident. It was also discussed which prerequisites and conditions must be fulfilled for the service to function in all its aspects. The discussion followed a structure based on simplicity, motivation and awareness. 

After the seminar, where the need for change was jointly understood, Ringo contacted specific caterers to find the most suitable solution.  

Collaboration and communication 

Various stakeholders took part in the involvement process – caterers of the campus, R-kiosk, Ülemiste City developers Mainor Ülemiste and Technopolis Ülemiste, Grandhaus, which offers maintenance services on campus, and several Ülemiste City companies such as If, Playtech, Helmes, Nordea, Thermory, Kuehne Nagel, EMTA and HARNO. 

The ambitious goal of eliminating all disposable utensils from the campus was also set an ambitious deadline – the end of September. So, all of July and August were devoted to testing the process and communication to make such a large-scale change as easy and convenient as possible for the people of Ülemiste City. The marketing and communication activities of the project were organised by the marketing team in cooperation with Ringo. Ülemiste City account managers involved caterers and helped create synergy between the developer and service providers: the change required process management and the support of several teams, especially the account managers. 

R-kiosk, MinBowl, and Dylan Ülemiste started using Ringo packaging during the test period. Gradually, various caterers started using reusable packaging next to single-use packaging to eliminate single-use packaging when buying takeaway food from October. Therefore, there were only a few months to pilot the solution and collect feedback. 

Results and recognition 

Thanks to the contribution of all stakeholders of the project and a successful test period, it was possible to switch to Ringo reusable packaging in October 2022 completely. By now, the people working in Ülemiste City and caterers have embraced the change, and reusable packaging has become the new normality.  

Since the beginning of the project (including the test period), over 69,000 reusable food packages have been used. Since October 2022, when the entire Ülemiste City started using reusable food packaging, approximately 8,000 unique food packaging units per month have been used. 

The project of implementing reusable packaging was so successful that it received the Cooperation Project of the Year award at the Tallinn 2022 Business Competition.