What Is Zero Waste Week?

Zero Waste Week is an annual campaign that inspires people and organisations to rethink their relationship with waste. For sustainability engagement managers, it offers a timely opportunity to launch or reinvigorate behaviour change campaigns that focus on reducing waste.

Running each September, Zero Waste Week provides ready-made themes, toolkits, and activities. You’ll find practical guidance on the official Zero Waste Week website to help you get started.

What Is Zero Waste Management?

Zero waste management is the strategy of designing and operating systems that prevent waste from being created in the first place. It prioritises reducing resource, reusing existing materials, and promoting closed-loop systems.

In plain terms, zero waste management, requires you to encourage people to think before they buy, repair what they already own, and choose products with minimal packaging. In your organisation, this could look like switching to digital resources over printing them on paper. This approach aligns with the circular economy and has been successfully implemented across various sectors.

Why Zero Waste?

Zero waste offers a clear, practical entry point for sustainability engagement. Because the actions are simple and visible (e.g. bringing a reusable coffee cup to the office) they create the social proof needed to encourage others to do the same. These moments of visibility help build the culture of sustainability that’s necessary for changing awareness into action.

Communications around zero waste also resonate well. In your internal comms like emails and , you can build campaigns around stories, stats, and simple tips. This is particularly effective as, in Deloitte’s Sustainable Consumer survey from last year, consumers noted reducing food waste among their top ethical practices.

Why Zero Waste Is Important

Every item we prevent from becoming waste helps conserve resources. A zero waste approach helps you show measurable impact while strengthening your sustainability culture.

The environmental case is clear. Reducing waste cuts greenhouse gas emissions across the entire product lifecycle, and reduces the amount of harmful chemicals like microplastics in our water supply. The social case is just as strong. Encouraging zero waste builds habits that support community wellbeing, financial savings, and a healthier planet.

Your Action Plan for Zero Waste Week

To make the most of Zero Waste Week, start with one or two simple themes. Choose a focus area—like food waste, plastic reduction, or responsible consumption—and build your week around it.

You can plan short daily actions that your team can complete, such as bringing a reusable container, choosing loose fruit and veg or packing leftovers for lunch. These are simple actions that can be taken in a short time period to easily fit into your routine.

The Zero Waste Week website also has suggestions for activities, aimed at everyone from beginners to waste warriors. They suggest:

Simple Activities:

• Purchasing re-usable shopping bags, water bottles and even drinking straws over single-use items.
• Planning meals to make the most of your food, and putting food scraps into a compost bin.
• Unsubscribing and deleting unwanted emails, and deleting unneeded files from the cloud to reduce wasted computing energy in data centres.

Intermediate Activities:

• Buying products with minimal packaging and making use of refill shops.
• Growing your own herbs in your garden or a pot in the kitchen, and preserving seasonal produce.
• Fixing broken items, selling or re-purposing old clothes, and refurbishing your furniture.

Advanced Activities:

• Heading to a recycling centre to dispose of bulky waste.
• Making your own toothpaste, deodorant, and skincare products.
• Switch up your parties with reusable decorations and homemade treats

After the week wraps up, keep the conversation going. A simple recurring incentive, such as spotlighting high performers, can go a long way.

Take the Next Step

If you’re looking for a way to level up your sustainability engagement, gamify your strategy with points, leader boards and a monthly prize for whoever earns the most points!

You’re already working hard to build a more sustainable organisation. We can make it easier. Use our expert tools to enhance your engagement strategy and make zero waste a long-term success. Start with a free sustainability engagement health check and find out how you can improve your sustainability engagement initiatives.