Ecklo

ECKLO is a reusable and recyclable packaging for pallets that aims to replace plastic film

Almost all pallets used for transporting goods are protected by several layers of plastic film (200 to 300 grams of plastic per pallet). This is a real status quo.

Appreciated for its operational efficiency and very low cost, the single-use film is systematically discarded when the pallets are received.

If the quantity of plastic film may seem derisory, in France it is more than 310,000 metric tonnes of plastic film that is used and directly thrown away. This represents more than 1.2 million TCO2e.

For a hypermarket that receives 50 pallets per day, the plastic film represents : 
-> 2.7 tons of plastic waste (partially recyclable)
-> 11 Tons of CO2e or about 22 Paris - New-York.

In order to offer a truly sustainable and practical alternative to companies, we created Ecklo, a reusable pallet wrap that holds and protects goods during transport without generating waste. It can be reused more than 150 times, which significantly reduces its carbon footprint and can be set up faster than hand wrapping. The goal is to integrate it into the logistics circuit of returnable pallets. 

The reusability of our solution allows us to save, over its lifetime, 85% of carbon emissions and 95% of waste compared to plastic film. These figures apply to our current version, we hope to reach 96% emission reduction by the end of the year by changing the manufacturing materials.

The project is part of a circular economy, as we believe that this benefits everyone. Our goal is to optimize all stages of Ecklo's life cycle. In concrete terms, the choice of the circular economy is translated through several aspects:

Eco-design: eco-design of the product facilitates its reparability and optimizes the weight/strength ratio, which reduces the amount of material used in manufacturing.

Adapted service offer: integrating the product in a circular economy implies increasing our service offer in order to prolong the life of our products and to ensure their good treatment at the end of life. To do so, we will propose the recycling of packaging and their repair as much as possible.

Choice of raw material: the sourcing of the raw material is key. Indeed, by using recycled materials for the manufacture of the packaging, we can further increase its positive impact and reduce carbon emissions by 95/96% compared to plastic film

Supplier selection: the suppliers we work with must have values aligned with ours so that we are all working in the same direction and with the same goals.

Our solution is aimed directly at all players in the economy. By offering an ecological alternative to plastic film that would not involve a significant cost increase or process change. 

Thus, we are primarily targeting logistics platforms as well as companies with internal pallet flows. 

Our solution helps them to reduce their impact on the environment and to meet the demanding objectives of the 3R decree (French decree which obliges companies to reach certain objectives of re-use, recycling and reduction of the packaging they use).

It is during our different student jobs that we were struck by this problem. At McDonald's for Corentin, Go sport for Robin or Leclerc for Florian, the observation was the same: we filled several garbage cans full of plastic film at each delivery.

Corentin, graduated from ESSEC Business School after a baccalauréat in engineering. To obtain his master's degree, he wrote his thesis on the environmental impact of transport packaging. He worked for two years as a management controller for the second largest French hotel group. Corentin also co-founded ESSEC Junior Development, a business consulting association specialized in startups. During this experience he participated as a senior consultant in 3 missions of 8 weeks for French startups (benchmarking, market research, writing a strategic plan). In charge of Ecklo's operations he developed the packaging with Florian, his brother. 

Robin is in charge of communication, growth and marketing. He graduated from ESSEC Business School in the same class as Corentin and then joined the Ms Entrepreneuriat Centrale-ESSEC. He worked at Centech in Montreal (startup accelerator) and at the ESSEC incubator where he was in charge of the organization of the first Demo Days, an event gathering more than 50 Parisian VCs for the pitch of 8 startups of the incubator.

Florian is the team's chief technical officer. He graduated from INSA Lyon, one of the top engineering schools in Lyon, in Energy and Environmental Engineering (GEn). He worked as a carbon footprint manager for the French Frejus tunnel company. During this experience, he carried out the carbon assessment of the company, trained the teams on the useful gestures to reduce emissions and set up a plan to reduce emissions.

Everyone brings their expertise to the team and our common values drive us forward. We believe that our solution can really have a positive impact on the environment and we want as many companies as possible to use it.

In order to understand our future users, we conducted numerous interviews with plastic film users. Whether they are technicians or store managers, we have tried to identify as many problems as possible that they encountered in order to design a product that could really replace the film. From those interviews, we have for example added many features such as the single and fast installation system...

We have created a reusable transport packaging that aims to replace the plastic film that has been used for decades. We believe this opens the door to other such innovations. Indeed, with the 3R decree (implemented in December 2022), companies are finally realizing the impact of their transport packaging and must take measures to combat it. Ecklo takes advantage of this to create a new standard. So we hope that other projects will see the light of day and will use the circular economy and reuse to reduce the carbon emissions of our economy.

For this we think that other companies can offer more specific solutions for the industry in which they are specialized to meet needs that we would not have identified. In addition, the market is so large that many players will be needed to ensure that these solutions are reusable by everyone.

Each of our covers saves approximately 105 kg of CO2. If we manage to produce and sell 2000, we will avoid 210 tons of CO2e in 2023.

Our packaging is made from recycled fabric. The cover is designed to keep the goods on the pallet during transport. A system makes it easy to set up and adapt the height to the goods (1.2m, 1.5m or 1.8m high).

In addition, each cover is equipped with an RFID tag that allows each cover to be tracked at departure and reception. This makes it possible to transmit information about the contents of the palette, its origin, its number of uses and its history. This information system is being created and will be based on blockchain technology which offers very high security and lower maintenance costs than a web2.0 solution. The data collected using these labels is also an asset for companies because they can thus be informed in real time when a pallet is received.

We are looking for our first users to launch our product as soon as the patent no longer blocks us (a non-disclosure period ranging from 4 weeks to 5 months is mandatory in France once the deposit has been made).

We aim to serve from 10 to 50 clients this year representing between 100 and 2000 covers.

The non-disclosure period ranging from 4 weeks to 5 months is mandatory in France once the deposit of the patent has been made and our production capacity is still low (10-20 per month) but we are in discution with an industrial french company that is willing to produce it at larger scale.

• Belledone : industrial sewing workshop that makes our prototypes
• Riverse : in charge of carrying out a life cycle analysis of our products.

Our business model is simple. We develop products that we have manufactured by French companies and we sell them.

Once the covers have been sold, we offer several services to businesses:
Repairs to damaged covers
Recovery of covers at the end of their life
Support for the development of more circular logistics

At the same time, we will offer them a subscription for the use of the tracking system and the analysis of their data.

We will sell our product which will allow us to continue R&D and to grow our project. 

To survive the first months, we are going to borrow around 20 000 € to Réseau entreprendre as a 0% interests Loan.