Dick’s Sporting Goods joins Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy

Dick's Sporting Goods

Dick’s Sporting Goods, a sporting goods retailer with headquarters in Pittsburgh, has announced plans to remove all single-use point-of-sale plastic bags from its stores by 2025 as well as a partnership with Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy.

According to a news release from the sporting goods retailer, Dick’s has joined the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail Bag and will work alongside CVS Health, Target and Walmart as well as Kroger and Walgreens to find ways to remove single-use point-of-sale plastic bags from its stores in the next few years. Additionally, the retailer is now a partner of Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy to find sustainable solutions to replace retail bags through the Beyond the Bag Initiative. Closed Loop Partners launched that initiative earlier this year to identify, test and implement design solutions and models that more sustainably serve the purpose of the retail bag.

“Our customers are outdoor enthusiasts who are passionate about working together to keep our planet clean and safe for future generations,” says Peter Land, chief communications and sustainability officer at Dick’s Sporting Goods. “Like our customers, we’re committed to doing what we can to prevent waste from ending up in our oceans and natural environment, and we look forward to working on the Beyond the Bag Initiative.”

The consortium had launched the Beyond the Bag Challenge in partnership with IDEO, a design and consulting firm based in California, which is currently accepting ideas to reinvent the retail bag, and ideas could include reusable models, new materials or software and hardware innovations to eliminate the need for bags altogether.

“We want to realize a future in which waste is a thing of the past,” says Kate Daly, managing director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners.

The Beyond the Bag Initiative is taking a holistic, three-year approach to identify and scale affordable, accessible and less wasteful solutions. The consortium aims to test and launch near-term solutions to replace the current retail bag early on in the initiative, while also continuing to refine longer term solutions to ensure a design that meets today’s and tomorrow’s needs.