Sustainable consumerism may soon be marketed as the next killer apartment amenity, as Brookfield Properties, a global property management firm, announced plans to partner with Loop, a new zero-waste platform attempting to mainstream the concept of selling consumer brands in reusable packaging.
Brookfield will become the first real estate partner for the new sustainability-minded business, and will soon embark on a pair of trial programs: one in its offices at Brookfield Place in Lower Manhattan, and another at One Blue Slip, a 359-unit luxury residential tower at Greenpoint Landing on the Brooklyn waterfront. By tethering the service to work or home, the partnership hope it makes it easier for more consumers to participate.
“Loop’s partnership with Brookfield will help us innovate future expansion of the Loop platform including B2B deliveries and drop-off points while offering residents the exclusive opportunity to access a limited number of spaces in the pilot program,” Loop CEO Tom Szaky said in a statement. “We are very excited to begin this partnership in New York City and Brooklyn and hopefully expand internationally as Loop moves into new markets.”
Loop by @TerraCycle has launched! Consumers in select markets can now buy their favorite products, including @HVRanch topping & dressing and @Clorox disinfecting wipes, in #reusable containers that can be cleaned & refilled. Learn more: https://t.co/yagbCohuLv @LoopStore_US pic.twitter.com/ZYIWP9lQ6p
— The Clorox Company (@CloroxCo) May 22, 2019
According to Sara Fay, vice president of Brookfield Properties, introducing this service acts as a kind of amenity, part of a growing trend of residential landlords positioning services such as Hello Alfred, the personal butler app, as a means of attracting and retaining tenants.
People want to participate in the sustainability space, and the climate change issue is daunting, but people often don’t know where to begin,“ she says. “If you make it easy for them to participate, it seems like an amenity.”
The service operates like a 21st century milkman for consumer goods: Consumers order products, which cost roughly the same as standard goods, then return the packaging, for which users pay a small deposit. With this pilot, residents and employees will be able to order products from brands such as Clorox, Tide, Häagen Dazs, and Seventh Generation that are shipped in durable, reusable containers estimated to last for at least 100 uses. The brainchild of TerraCycle, a private recycling service based in New Jersey, Loop was introduced at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.
In addition to the Brookfield partnership, Loop has also announced partnerships with Walgreens and Kroeger, hoping that by adding more convenient places to pick-up and drop off reusable packaging, it can make conscious consuming more convenient.
Residents at One Blue Slip, where rents begin at $2,600 a month, won’t have special pricing compared to normal Loop users, but will have their products—shipped via UPS, a Loop partner—delivered to their units. Eventually, if the trials prove successful, Brookfield will look into expanding into additional buildings, and devising special receptacles to cut down even further on packaging and shipping waste. Brookfield has $188 billion in real estate assets under management and currently manages 44,000 apartments, 38,000 of which they own.
“What’s so exciting about this is that it feels like the first sustainability initiative that impacts residents in a one-to-one way,” says Fay. “We do a lot on the operational side, but it doesn’t always directly impact the end user in a way that they actually feel.”