Cardboard house: Miles Roberts in a DS Smith warehouse near Cambridge
Miles Roberts’ pet peeve is one we can all identify with. The CEO of FTSE 100 packaging giant DS Smith becomes visibly agitated when he talks about the mind-bogglingly large boxes – of small items – ending up on our doorstep. ‘Just think of all the products you get in the wrong size box,’ he says annoyed.
We are in a warehouse outside Cambridge that has been recreated as the inside of a supermarket. The aisles are full of different food in boxes from DS Smith. In one corner is an open truck, also loaded with boxes, to show how many can fit.
It’s about making sure the boxes are designed in such a way that the supermarket chains can unload and display the products effectively while maximizing the space on the trucks to reduce transportation costs and help the environment.
Does it sound a bit boring? Yes. But it won’t be long before I’m hooked. The more Roberts talks about the simple cardboard box, the more I sympathize with his belief that it is at the center of the modern universe.
He becomes more and more lively as he explains the intricacies of a box of large chocolate bars – adorned with the instantly recognizable colors of a big household name – designed to be displayed on supermarket shelves.
Roberts explains that whenever one bar of chocolate is removed, the others are pushed forward, so subsequent customers don’t have to fumble.
This is just part of the surprising amount of psychology packed into packaging.
“A lot is unconscious,” he says. ‘The color association with major brands, for example.
‘You don’t always know why you pick something up, but subtle things happen. A curved front of a box is more powerful than a straight one.’
Displaying goods in attractive boxes can save supermarkets time and money, as staff do not have to unpack individual items, but can simply place the entire box full on the shelf.
Making boxes easy to open increases staff productivity and could theoretically mean fewer workers are needed. If we do a race to tear open a box each, Roberts is a little slower than me.
By getting rid of ridiculously large boxes and making sure the packaging is sized for the size of the item inside, more can be squeezed into trucks. That makes a difference in the number of trips. Then, of course, there are the benefits of being able to put increasingly sophisticated cardboard boxes into recycling bins.
Aside from ergonomics and satisfying truck loading, this eco-friendly approach gets to the core of the business.
Roberts, 59, says he had a series of realizations, rather than one revelation, about the dangers and prevalence of plastic over several years. Visits to landfills as part of his job impressed him with the scale of the problem.
‘Everywhere you see huge pieces of waste, plastic. You just know this isn’t the right way to use the Earth’s resources – and you can’t clean it up afterwards.
“I also sail and you go to some places and see the garbage that washes up on the shore at night, it’s just not sustainable.”
During his 13-year tenure at DS Smith, he put this observation into practice by selling his plastics division to private equity firm Olympus Partners for £445 million in 2019.
This was a bold move, not least because plastics accounted for about 70 percent of the company’s sales.
Fortunately for him, cardboard and paper have become more important, partly because of the ‘David Attenborough effect’, with the issue coming up in the environmental documentary series The Blue Planet.
Climate change is also a concern on a personal level. He and his wife own a farm in Sudbury, Suffolk, where they raise a small herd of cattle – for meat, not dairy – and sell crops such as wheat. ‘My family and I can see in the area what the soil quality is like and how it has changed over the years.’
Neither his day job as CEO of the FTSE 100 nor his second job as a farmer seemed likely when he was younger.
He grew up near Crystal Palace in South London and after he finished school, he drifted between jobs until his then-girlfriend’s father told him to tackle his ideas.
Roberts – who is tall, slim and smiley – then studied for A-Levels at night school before going on to study engineering at Bristol as a mature student and embarking on a career in construction.
On his way to the top job at DS Smith, he trained as an accountant and worked for a while at the Generale des Eaux water company in Paris.
DS Smith’s share price is up 215 percent since joining in 2010, but has fallen 40 percent over the past five years.
The company focuses on the UK, Continental Europe and the US. Roberts says he’s not keen on moving to other regions.
“It’s about where the company can make the most difference and be successful,” he says. ‘Look at all the waste produced across Europe and the US. Most of the consumption in the world is actually here.’
One of DS Smith’s selling points is that it plays a big role in recycling – although this could change in the UK.
The company is considering selling or closing six of its seven recycling plants, but has not set a deadline for the decision as this is a “challenging” field at the moment.
Whether or not this part of the business disappears, Roberts says he would like to invest in the UK – but only if the government can actually set crucial policies in areas such as energy.
Much has been said about reaching the UK’s net zero targets, but he argues that heavy industry needs to know the details before it can commit to building new factories. “The UK needs an integrated strategy, not a piecemeal approach,” he says.
‘There is a significant difference between the UK and elsewhere.
‘We would like to invest more in the UK, but for that we need insight: what is the energy source, where, who will build it, how will it be distributed. If we know that, we can support the government’s plans.
“It can take 10 years for our investments to kick in, so we tend to look ahead up to 30 years – and we need policies that do the same.”
He says the UK is way behind the US, with its green subsidies known as the Inflation Reduction Act, and the EU, which has similar schemes.
The UK risks missing out on innovative work that could bring DS Smith abroad. The company is experimenting with using fibers from daisies, cocoa plants and seaweed to make the sustainable packaging materials of the future.
Cardboard undoubtedly rules for now, but Roberts will soon find himself needing to think outside the box.
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