Case Study: Microsoft advances circular alternatives to pallet stretch wrap with Anthesis

Supporting a Cross-industry Collaborative Project to Find Alternative Solutions to Pallet-stretch Wrap

Microsoft, committed to eliminating single-use plastic from its packaging by 2025, sought to find alternative solutions to traditional pallet stretch wrap for its datacenter operations. To tackle this challenge, Microsoft commissioned the sustainability consultancy Anthesis to manage a collaborative, cross-industry project.

Anthesis brought together ten companies from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Network to explore circular solutions, focusing on reuse, recycling, and composting. The vendor managed the entire project, which included workshops, pilots, and a landscape review, culminating in a published white paper. The key result was the finding that there is no single alternative to traditional wrap, and that success depends on full life cycle thinking and cross-industry collaboration. The project established a proven methodology for companies to work together to implement circular solutions at scale.

Microsoft

Alessandra Pistoia

Sr. Program Manager, Zero Waste and Circularity