Grove Collaborative, Roven Go ‘Plastic Neutral,’ to Charge Plastic Tax

San Francisco-based e-tailer Grove Collaborative espousing “natural” and “clean” household and consumer packaged goods products is stepping up its fight on plastics.
In its new commitment, the $1 billion-valuated Grove Collaborative and its clean beauty subplatform Roven, are vowing to go 100-percent plastic-free by 2025. To do so, the company is instating a plastic “tax” on its owned and third-party brands, which include Mrs. Meyer’s products, Method and Seventh Generation.
“Nobody’s going to get kicked off the site tomorrow,” Stuart Landesberg, the company’s cofounder and chief executive officer, said to WWD. Or even come 2025, as Landesberg — calling himself “an eternal optimist” — believes “the people we work with genuinely want to make changes for the better.”
Over the next five years, Landesberg hopes Grove’s plastic tax will drive and fund innovation toward reusable packaging and steer the CPG industry to action. And the response from Grove vendors has already been incredible, as he shared.
Grove — through its partnership with Vancouver-based Plastic Bank, which incentivizes the collection of ocean-bound plastic waste — has been effectively “plastic neutral” since January, removing plastic on a “one-for-one” basis across brands and products.
With all due respect, he gives credit to the emerging zero-waste retailers, who have one-upped plastic neutrality by instating plastic-free standards from the upstart. 
Citing a 2 million strong customer base and increased consumer awareness, Landesberg said: “I don’t think this could have happened 10 years ago.”
Last year, the certified B-Corp logged more than $200 million in revenue and reduced plastic waste by nearly 1 million pounds by its sustainability-linked innovations in cleaning products.
But between an August acquisition of sexual wellness brand Sustain Natural, a September funding round to the tune of $150 million and October launch of clean beauty subplatform Roven — this five-year commitment may be Grove’s only abstract development.
Landesberg said reporting on its plastics commitment will be annually, but the exact metrics are undetermined.
Clear in his intention at the beginning of the conversation, Landesberg reiterated that Grove is focused not on doing “less bad” but “more good," and it's a trend to proliferate across the industry.
For More See:
Grove Collaborative Gets Into Clean Beauty With New Platform Roven
Grove Collaborative Acquires Sexual Wellness Business Sustain Natural
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