For Sustainability & ESG Teams

Take-back data — today vs. with Utilitarian

Aggregated weight per store, per shipment. No product-level breakdown. No consumer link. Not auditable for CSRD or EPR compliance.

Brand, model, category per item. Linked to a timestamped consumer interaction. Traceable from take-back to circular outcome. Audit-ready.

Customers hand in products and never hear what happened. That gap kills trust — and without trust, participation doesn't scale. The retailers seeing repeat take-back visits are the ones closing that loop.

Sustainability programmes that can't show commercial value struggle to get budget beyond the pilot. Take-back needs a revenue argument to scale.

The Solution

Every take-back interaction creates a traceable, auditable data point — from consumer to circular outcome.

CSRD-ready reporting

Product-level take-back data structured for CSRD disclosure. Timestamped, store-located, consumer-linked. Export when your reporting cycle requires it.

EPR compliance trail

Traceable product data from consumer hand-in to recycling outcome. The audit trail that extended producer responsibility frameworks require.

Auditable traceability

Every take-back creates a data point: who handed in what, where, when, and what happened to it. No gaps between collection and circular outcome.

Product-level data capture

Brand, model, and category for every item. Segment by product type, identify patterns, understand what your customers are discarding and when.

Commercial ROI that funds the programme

Every take-back also captures an email at €2.72 — giving your marketing team a channel that justifies ongoing investment. Sustainability scales when it demonstrates commercial value.

Ethical recycling standards

We require that recycling partners meet responsible processing standards. Ethical circular outcomes are a condition of working with us — not an add-on or an aspiration.

"What makes this data valuable is not just transparency, but control. For the first time, we can link consumer returns at retail directly to operational circular outcomes."

Danny Pormes · CEO, FastFeetGrinded

"The combination of simplicity, customer engagement, and data-driven transparency is what makes this approach stand out. This is exactly the direction our industry needs."

Ron Bruinenberg · Retail & Expansion, EK Netherlands

"We even see customers coming back specifically to hand in their shoes and collect their reward — which shows the system is working very well in terms of building loyalty and repeat visits."

Rowen Slagter-Pormes · Management, RunnersWorld Hoorn

"We already report on our take-back programme."

Most take-back reporting is based on aggregated weight from recyclers — total kg collected per period. That satisfies internal KPIs but falls short of what CSRD and EPR frameworks increasingly require: product-level traceability linked to consumer interactions. If your reports can't show what was collected, from whom, and what happened to it at the product level, there's a data gap.

"Our sustainability strategy is focused on repair."

Repair is a higher-value circular outcome — and take-back data makes it smarter. When you capture product-level data at end-of-life, you learn which brands, models, and categories break down fastest, which products customers replace rather than repair, and where repair investment would have the highest impact. Take-back doesn't compete with repair — it generates the evidence base that tells you where repair programmes should focus.

"Our recycler already provides the data we need."

Recyclers provide weight data and sometimes material composition. They don't capture product-level information (brand, model, category) or link it to a consumer interaction. That consumer-to-outcome connection is what auditable traceability requires — and it can only be captured at the point of take-back, not at the processing facility.

"How does this fit CSRD requirements specifically?"

CSRD requires disclosure on resource use and circular economy practices, including take-back and recycling activities. Our data provides the granularity that generic weight-based reporting lacks: product-level records, consumer linkage, timestamped interactions, and traceable circular outcomes. The data exports in formats your reporting team can work with directly.

"Isn't this just greenwashing with better data?"

The opposite. Greenwashing happens when claims outpace evidence. Our platform creates the evidence: verifiable, product-level data trails from consumer take-back to circular outcome. We also require that recycling partners meet ethical processing standards — responsible outcomes are a condition of working with us, not marketing material.

"This sounds like a marketing tool, not a sustainability tool."

It's both — deliberately. The platform captures email and product data in the same interaction. Your sustainability team gets auditable traceability data. Your marketing team gets a customer acquisition channel that costs €2.72 per email. That dual value is by design: sustainability programmes that demonstrate commercial ROI get recurring budget, not one-off allocations. That's how circular infrastructure actually scales.

"Who handles the recycling?"

Most retailers already have a recycling partner — and we work alongside them. Our platform captures data at the point of take-back; your existing recycler continues to handle processing. If you need a recommendation, we can connect you with trusted partners. We require that all recycling partners meet responsible processing standards — ethical outcomes are non-negotiable.