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For Sustainability & ESG Teams

CSRD asks for product-level traceability. Your take-back programme gives you a weight figure.

That gap is where compliance risk lives. Aggregate weight satisfies collection volume targets — but not the product-level traceability, category breakdowns, and verified circular outcomes that CSRD and EPR frameworks are moving towards.

Utilitarian captures brand, model, and category at the point of consumer take-back. Timestamped. Store-located. Export-ready for your reporting cycle.

What you report today vs what CSRD needs
What you have today
– Total kilograms collected
– Number of items (estimated)
– Recycler weight report
What CSRD & EPR require
✓ Brand, model, product category
✓ Date and location of take-back
✓ Verified circular outcome
✓ Auditable chain of custody
Utilitarian closes this gap at the point of consumer take-back — with no additional operational burden on stores.
Live in INTERSPORT RunnersWorld EK Sport
What the data looks like

From weight figure to product-level record.

Each take-back interaction generates a structured record with every field your reporting team needs. Exportable on demand. Auditable from day one.

Sample take-back record
Consumer data
Email customer@example.com
Consent timestamp 2025-03-12 14:32:07
Store location Amsterdam Centraal
Product data
Brand Nike
Category Running footwear
Circular outcome Verified recycled
CSRD
Product-level traceability for circular economy disclosures. Category breakdowns. Verified outcomes — not estimated weights.
EPR
Volume data by product category for producer responsibility reporting. Store-level breakdown available on demand.
Audit
Every record timestamped and store-attributed. Export to CSV or structured format. Chain of custody from consumer to recycler.
The budget argument

When take-back pays for itself, ESG stops competing for budget.

The sustainability team's persistent problem: programmes that create operational cost without commercial return lose budget battles every cycle. Marketing, sales, and operations all have clearer ROI metrics. Sustainability often doesn't.

Utilitarian's take-back programme generates measurable marketing return — €3.25 email subscribers with product data, redeemable discount codes, repeat visit behaviour — which means the commercial case is made before the ESG case even needs to be. The programme earns its budget from marketing ROI. Your reporting data comes along for free.

The outcome

Sustainability programme with commercial ROI. ESG data team gets product-level traceability. Marketing team gets high-intent subscribers. Programme justifies itself on marketing numbers alone — the compliance data is a structural benefit, not a cost justification.

Deployment

Four weeks to live. No IT project. No store operations change.

The programme deploys with a poster refresh. Customers self-serve via QR code — no staff involvement, no app download, no hardware. Data flows to your dashboard automatically from the first day.

Week 1–2
Programme setup — branded flow, reward configuration, recycling partner verification, compliance fields configured.
Week 3–4
Poster artwork delivered, QR live, store team briefed (10 minutes), data dashboard access granted.
Ongoing
Take-back records accumulate. Export to CSV on your reporting cycle. CSRD and EPR fields pre-structured.
First report cycle
Auditable, product-level data ready for submission. Chain of custody documented from consumer to circular outcome.
What Retailers Report

Live in stores. Data flowing from day one.

"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
"Customers are very curious about what actually happens to the shoes. The transparency has been a real selling point with customers who care about where their products go."
Wim · Entrepreneur, Intersport Ermelo

Questions sustainability teams ask

"We already submit a sustainability report — what changes?"
Your current reporting gets a product-level data source where previously you had aggregate weight. For retailers already CSRD-reporting, Utilitarian's data slots into your circular economy disclosures with specific product category and outcome data. For retailers preparing for CSRD, it builds the data trail now rather than retrospectively.
"We already have a recycling partner. Do we need to switch?"
No. Utilitarian works alongside your existing recycling partner. We add the consumer-facing data capture layer — email, product data, consent, and circular outcome verification. Your recycler continues to handle the physical processing. We require that recycling partners meet responsible processing standards, but we don't replace them.
"How do we verify the circular outcome?"
The platform records the recycling partner handling each take-back consignment. Outcome data (sorted, processed, type of circular output) flows from the recycling partner's confirmation into your dashboard. This gives you an auditable chain from consumer to circular outcome — not just a weight report from a third party.
"How do we make the business case internally?"
Lead with marketing ROI — €3.25 email subscribers, repeat visit loyalty data, discount redemption rates. Those are numbers every commercial director understands. The CSRD and EPR data benefits come along as structural additions to a programme that already justifies itself commercially. We help you build the internal case before the first meeting.
 

See what your take-back data could look like.

We'll walk through what CSRD-ready product-level reporting looks like from your existing take-back programme, and what four weeks to live means in practice.

Book a Demo →