01 · Understand

Waste starts long before the bin.

Understand brings product, packaging, procurement and waste information together.

Illustrative concept of a collaborative review of packaging and material samples around a table, including a reusable cup, cardboard, plastics and material swatches.

Product, packaging, procurement and waste information traditionally sit in different places. This makes it difficult to understand how materials move through an organisation, what they ultimately cost and where the greatest opportunities for improvement exist.

Understand brings that information together.

We establish what materials enter your organisation, how they move through it and what happens when they become waste, creating the evidence needed to reduce cost, prevent waste, improve recycling and make better-informed decisions.

What we offer

Start with what you need to understand.

From detailed product and packaging intelligence to on-site material analysis and wider strategic support, we establish the evidence needed to identify where change can have the greatest impact.Our services can be used individually or combined to create a more complete view of resources across your organisation.

01

Product & Packaging Intelligence

Understand what you're buying before it becomes waste.

What's included

Most waste is determined long before disposal, through the products organisations buy and the packaging in which they arrive.

We capture, aggregate and interrogate product and packaging data to establish exactly what materials are entering your organisation and in what quantities.

Through collabor8, information is structured down to product, packaging level, component and individual material, creating a detailed material baseline across individual sites or an entire estate.

  • Product and SKU-level analysis
  • Primary, secondary and tertiary packaging
  • Material composition and component weights
  • Recycled content and supporting evidence
  • Supplier and manufacturer engagement
  • EPR, PPT and wider regulatory insight
  • Prevention, reuse and substitution opportunities
02

Material & Waste Analysis

Understand what happens once materials arrive.

What's included

Knowing what enters an organisation is only half the picture. How materials move through a site determines where they arise, how effectively they can be captured and what ultimately becomes waste.

We combine material flow analysis, waste data and targeted site audits to understand what happens between purchase and disposal.

This enables us to identify where resources are being lost, where infrastructure and processes can be improved and where services can be rationalised.

  • Material input and output mapping
  • Site waste and material audits
  • Waste composition analysis
  • Point-of-generation mapping
  • Collection infrastructure reviews
  • Service, volume and cost analysis
  • Recycling and resource recovery opportunities
03

Strategy, Compliance & Advisory

Turn information into informed decisions.

What's included

Understanding creates value when the evidence is interpreted and acted upon.

We combine material intelligence, operational data and more than fifteen years of resource-management experience to identify and prioritise opportunities according to their commercial, operational, environmental and regulatory impact.

From individual compliance challenges to organisation-wide resource strategies and collaborative industry programmes, we provide the expertise required to turn evidence into practical action.

  • Resource and circularity strategies
  • Prioritised improvement programmes
  • EPR, PPT and wider regulatory support
  • TRUE Zero Waste Certification support
  • Business cases and scenario modelling
  • Bespoke research and material studies
  • Multi-stakeholder and industry programmes
What you leave with

Evidence you can act on.

Every Understand engagement is designed to establish a credible baseline and identify what should happen next.

  1. 01

    Visibility

    understand the products, packaging and materials entering your organisation.

  2. 02

    Insight

    establish how those materials move through your sites and what ultimately becomes waste.

  3. 03

    Opportunity

    identify where materials can be prevented, reused, substituted or better recycled.

  4. 04

    Priorities

    assess opportunities against cost, impact, feasibility and regulatory requirements.

  5. 05

    Action

    establish a practical route from opportunity through to implementation and measurement.

collabor8 logo

Material intelligence you can act on.

For more than fifteen years, co-cre8 has focused on resources, not just waste. One conclusion has remained consistent: understanding and controlling material inputs is fundamental to achieving the highest and best use of resources.

collabor8 is the manifestation of that thinking.

Our material intelligence platform transforms fragmented product and packaging data into a structured, validated view of the materials entering your organisation.

The data itself is obtainable. The difference is knowing what to ask for, how to interrogate it and how to understand its wider implications.

By combining structured data with our expertise across materials, procurement, waste, recycling, compliance and circularity, we turn information into intelligence organisations can act on.

The public collabor8 website explaining how procurement, product and packaging data can reveal what comes in, where it goes and what should change next.

Explore the collabor8 website and its product and packaging intelligence.

Explore the collabor8 website
Where this leads

Put the evidence to work.

Next step

Start with what you need to understand.

Whether the question starts with what you're buying, what you're throwing away or what you should change, we'll help establish the evidence needed to answer it.