Lidl is running an ambitious pilot: food that can no longer be eaten is no longer discarded as residual waste, but processed into animal feed. A step that contributes to a fairer and more sustainable food system. The challenge was not in the technology. It was in the people who work with that food every day.
People as the key factor
Sorting waste sounds straightforward, until you are standing in front of a confusing bin holding a chicken meal salad. What do you do then? That moment of doubt, that fraction of a second, is precisely where mistakes happen. And mistakes mean contaminated waste streams, making the entire chain less sustainable.
Lidl asked us to design a behavioural intervention that helps employees make the right choice quickly and intuitively. That required more than a clear sign. It required insight into how people make decisions under time pressure, in a busy supermarket environment, with different products in hand.
Designing from behaviour
Our starting point was a behavioural principle we see working time and again: the less people have to think, the fewer mistakes they make. Not because employees are unwilling, but because attention and energy are scarce resources. Good design takes away as much cognitive load as possible.
We developed a decision tree that fits seamlessly into the way employees already work. The final version looks simple, but simplicity is the result of understanding complexity and cutting through it. The first versions were more elaborate, and step by step, in collaboration with the people on the shop floor, we made the tree shorter, clearer, and faster to follow. Every unnecessary step we removed made the right choice a little easier.
Learning together in practice
What made this collaboration special was the way Lidl approached the project. There was an understanding that the food transition ultimately depends on sustainably changing human behaviour. That called for room for research, for testing, for adjusting designs based on what we learned during the pilot.
That mindset made genuine collaboration possible. We tested early, learned from what did not work, and adapted. The result is an intervention that is not only logical on paper, but also works in the real, messy context of a working supermarket.
The pilot struck a chord: in a single day, NOS, NU.nl, and the Financieele Dagblad covered it. That reach is gratifying, but the real success lies in what happens on the shop floor. Cleaner waste streams, less food waste, employees who can make the right choice without having to think long and hard about it.
Sustainability starts with people
This collaboration confirms something we at Ink Social Design see more and more often: sustainable change rarely begins with technology. It begins with the people who use systems, with the context in which they work, and with design that connects to their daily reality. That is precisely where we do our work.
We are proud of what we have achieved together with Lidl, and look forward to the further roll-out of the pilot.
